Appeal No. 96-3395 Page 8
Application No. 08/347,900
certain concepts ....” (Examiner’s Answer at 6.) He
concludes, “the concepts used in those secondary references
would have been obvious to use in combination with the ideas
represented by the primary reference because it is desirable
to clean a sampler like that of Spencer, and the secondary
references show and use a known way of cleaning flow lines.”
(Id.)
We find the appellant’s argument to be unpersuasive. It
is unnecessary that inventions of references be physically
combinable to render obvious an invention under review. In re
Sneed, 710 F.2d 1544, 1550, 218 USPQ 385, 389 (Fed. Cir.
1983). See also In re Nievelt, 482 F.2d 965, 968, 179 USPQ
224, 226 (CCPA 1972) ("Combining the teachings of references
does not involve an ability to combine their specific
structures.").
The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a
reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of
another reference but what the combined teachings of those
references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in
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