Appeal No. 2002-0209
Application 09/299,452
or "template" in attempting to piece together isolated disclosures
and teachings of the prior art so that the claimed invention is
rendered obvious. Moreover, and more to the point in the present
appeal, we observe that the mere fact that some prior art reference
(i.e., Taylor) may be modified in the manner suggested by the
examiner does not make such a modification obvious unless the
applied prior art suggested the desirability of the modification.
See In re Gordon, 773 F.2d 900, 902, 221 USPQ 1125, 1127 (Fed. Cir
1984). Here, the prior art relied upon by the examiner contains no
such suggestion.
At best, it would appear that the applied prior art references
would have provided a suggestion to entirely replace the pallet
(42) seen in Figure 6 of Taylor with a system of separate,
individually inflatable, elongate tubes (10) and a separate deck or
platform (28) temporarily placed on the tubes to allow stacking or
storage of goods thereon, as taught in Ziemba.
Since we have determined that the teachings and suggestions
found in Taylor and Ziemba would not have made the subject matter
as a whole of independent claims 1 and 5 on appeal obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art at the time of appellant’s invention,
5
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