Appeal No. 1999-2783
Application No. 08/654,034
only on appellant's suggestion concerning the type of sheet
material involved in the floating artificial weed line of the
present application, and thus relied upon hindsight gained
from appellant's own application in citing the Hill patent.
Appellant also argues that the examiner's positions on
obviousness in this appeal represent a classic case of the
examiner using impermissible hindsight in order to reconstruct
appellant's claimed subject matter.
Considering the question of non-analogous prior art, for
resolution of obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 the law
presumes full knowledge by the hypothetical worker having
ordinary skill in the art of all the prior art in the
inventor's field of endeavor. With regard to prior art
outside the inventor's field of endeavor, knowledge is
presumed only as to those arts reasonably pertinent to the
particular problem with which the inventor was involved. See
In re Clay, 966 F.2d 656, 658,
23 USPQ2d 1058, 1060 (Fed. Cir. 1992), In re Wood, 599 F.2d
1032, 1036, 202 USPQ 171, 174 (CCPA 1979) and In re Antle,
444 F.2d 1168, 1171-72, 170 USPQ 285, 287-88 (CCPA 1971).
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