Appeal No. 1996-3495
Application No. 08/321,941
communication module “in a small enclosure to save space and
weight” (answer, page 5). We also cannot sustain this
rejection.
The relevant inquiry under § 103 is whether there is a
reason, suggestion or motivation in the prior art that would
have led one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the
references in a manner to meet the terms of the claims. See
e.g., In re Dow Chem. Co., 837 F.2d 469, 473, 5 USPQ2d 1529,
1531-1532 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
In the present case, Eberwine does not expressly disclose
the size of his geographic position determination and
communication module 1, although it is expected that
Eberwine’s module is relatively small because of space
constraints in an aircraft as discussed supra. Durborow, on
the other hand, merely discloses a geographic position
determination module that is small enough to be portable and
to be hand-held.
There is no teaching in the first instance that
Durborow’s module is any smaller than the size of the module
which one skilled in the art would expect to find in
Eberwine’s aircraft to warrant the substitution of Durborow’s
7
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