Appeal No. 1998-0870
Application No. 08/325,015
teachings of the applied references would have suggested to
one of ordinary skill in the art; nonobviousness cannot be
established by attacking references individually when the
rejection is based on a combination of references. In re
Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097, 231 USPQ 375, 380 (Fed. Cir.
1986); Cable Elec. Prods., Inc. v. Genmark, Inc., 770 F.2d
1015, 1025, 226 USPQ 881, 886-87 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re
Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981).
As we discussed above, we find that the combined
teachings of the applied references would have led one of
ordinary skill in the art to substitute the carbon black with
polypyrrole, because the references show that these materials
are interchangeable as black electrically conductive fine
powders called for in Kinoshita. Thus, we conclude that the
applied prior art references would have provided ample
motivation or suggestion to one of ordinary skill in the art
to arrive at appellants’ claimed subject matter.
It also appears that appellants are alleging that Armes
and Wessling constitute non-analogous art. We are not
persuaded by this argument. As correctly stated by the
17
Page: Previous 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007