Appeal No. 1996-3178
Application 08/407,275
inferences which artisan would have logically drawn therefrom may be properly evaluated in formulating
rejection).
We turn next to appellants’ argument (Brief, page 4) that the examiner has not made it evident
how Banks and Saliga could be structurally combined, and that instead the examiner is combining ideas
and not technology. We note that the test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary
reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the
claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the
references. Rather the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to
those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591, 18 USPQ2d 1089, 1091 (Fed.
Cir. 1991); In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In other words, the
test is not what the individual references themselves teach, but rather what the combination of the
disclosures taken as a whole would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. In re McLaughlin,
443 F.2d 1392, 1395, 170 USPQ 209, 212 (CCPA 1971). In the case before us, we find that the
examiner has properly and sufficiently set forth a prima facie case of obviousness under 35 U.S.C. §
103. We find that representative claim 2 on appeal, which recites a locking means, would have been
obvious in light of the collective teachings and concepts fairly suggested by Saliga and Banks. Banks
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