Appeal No. 1999-1491
Application No. 08/386,670
ordinary skill in the art without any specific hint or
suggestion in the particular reference. See In re Bozek, 416
F.2d 1385, 1390, 163 USPQ 545, 549 (CCPA 1969). Further, in
an obviousness assessment, skill is presumed on the part of
the artisan rather than lack thereof. In re Sovish, 769 F.2d
738, 743, 226, USPQ 771, 774 (Fed. Cir. 1985). In combining
the teachings of Deck with Ledesma, we note that Deck
discloses that the cushion is for supporting critically ill
neonates during prolonged hospital confinement (col. 1, lines
11-16) and furthermore, that Deck's invention may also be used
for performing medical procedures with a minimum of handling
of the neonate (col. 3, lines 16-35). An exemplary procedure
is radiography, wherein one of ordinary skill in the art would
know that keeping the infant in a singular position is
important to obtaining accurate radiographs. With this
teaching in mind and the teaching in Ledesma (col. 1, line 31)
that the support cushion therein may be used for “a number of
operations,” we agree with the examiner that it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide a
securement strap transverse to Ledesma's cushion (10) in order
to provide added securement to Ledesma's device. One should
10
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