Appeal No. 1999-2537 Page 13 Application No. 08/619,269 The arguments advanced by the appellants (brief, pp. 8- 11, and reply brief, pp. 3-5) are unpersuasive for the following reasons. First, the appellants have argued deficiencies of each reference on an individual basis, however, it is well-settled that nonobviousness cannot be established by attacking the references individually when the rejection is predicated upon a combination of prior art disclosures. See In re Merck & Co. Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097, 231 USPQ 375, 380 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Secondly, we note that all of the features of the secondary reference need not be bodily incorporated into the primary reference (see In re Keller, supra, at 642 F.2d 425, 208 USPQ 881) and the artisan is not compelled to blindly follow the teaching of one prior art reference over the other without the exercise of independent judgment (see Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Aeroquip Corp., 733 F.2d 881, 889, 221 USPQ 1025, 1032 (Fed. Cir. 1984)). Lastly, we note that while there must be some teaching, reason, suggestion, or motivation to combine existing elements to produce the claimed device, it is not necessary that the cited references or prior art specifically suggest making the combination (see B.F. Goodrich Co. v.Page: Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007