Appeal No. 97-1657 Page 8
Application No. 08/216,735
teaching, suggestion, or incentive supporting the combination.
In re Geiger, 815 F.2d 686, 688, 2 USPQ2d 1276, 1278 (Fed.
Cir. 1987). The question is whether there is something in the
prior art as a whole to suggest the desirability, and thus the
obviousness, of making the combination. In re Rouffett, 149
F.3d 1350, 1355, 47 USPQ2d 1453, 1456 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re
Beattie, 974 F.2d 1309, 1311-12, 24 USPQ2d 1040, 1042 (Fed.
Cir. 1992).
The Examiner did not identify a proper teaching,
suggestion, or incentive supporting the combination of Gay
with Hogan. We agree with the appellants that Hogan’s
teaching of ensuring consistency between the data in its local
store and in its database system would not have suggested the
desirability, and thus the obviousness, of combining Gay with
Hogan to obtain the claimed invention.
The computer system of the Hogan reference implements a
graphics interface 10. A graphics engine 12 generates a
display, i.e., graph, that depicts data delivered from remote
database 11. The display comprises graphical objects, each
representing a datum. A local data store 14 stores data that
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