Appeal No. 1997-3181 Application No. 08/304,345 whole; there is no legally recognizable ‘heart’ of the invention.” Para-Ordnance Mfg. v. SGS Importers Int'l, Inc., 73 F.3d 1085, 1087, 37 USPQ2d 1237, 1239 (Fed. Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 822 (1996) citing W.L. Gore & Assoc., Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1548, 220 USPQ 303, 309 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984). Appellants argue on page 5 of the brief that Kohler's routing system assigns up to three skill numbers to incoming calls and searches among a group of agents having different skills in order to match the agent with the needs of the caller. Appellants add on page 10 of the brief that Kohler does not provide any teaching or suggestion to form “skill groups of available agents” comprising of “agents having a common agent-skill indicator” as recited in claim 1. Additionally, Appellants state that Kohler searches for an agent with the matching skill among agents who may be unavailable, have the wrong skill, or both, which requires longer search time while the caller is waiting. Appellants further state on page 11 of the brief that without any reason to modify Kohler to group agents in skill groups, the Examiner uses hindsight to show obviousness. 5Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007