Appeal No. 1998-2585
Application No. 08/643,935
the view that Appellants are looking for an explicit and
specific teaching for the combination. That is not required
by our reviewing court as it has been well settled 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. Aircraft Braking Sys. Corp., 72 F.3d 1577, 1582, 37
USPQ2d 1314, 1318 (Fed. Cir. 1996) and In re Nilssen, 851 F.2d
1401, 1403, 7 USPQ2d 1500, 1502 (Fed. Cir. 1988)) as
Appellants would apparently have us believe. Rather, the test
for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the
references would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in
the art. See In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591, 18 USPQ2d 1089,
1091 (Fed. Cir. 1991) and In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208
USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). Moreover, in evaluating such
references it is proper to take into account not only the
specific teachings of the references but also the inferences
which one skilled in the art would reasonably be expected to
draw therefrom. In re Preda, 401 F.2d 825, 826, 159 USPQ 342,
344 (CCPA 1968). Therefore, we sustain the obviousness
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