Appeal No. 2002-1641 Application No. 09/276,213 the optimal spin control system of Ghoneim so as to result in the subject matter now claimed by appellant. In that regard, we note that, as our court of review indicated in In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1784 (Fed. Cir. 1992), it is impermissible to use the claimed invention as an instruction manual or "template" to piece together isolated disclosures and teachings of the prior art so that the claimed invention is rendered obvious. That same Court has also cautioned against focussing on the obviousness of the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art rather than on the invention as a whole as 35 U.S.C. § 103 requires, as we believe the examiner has done in the present case. See, e.g., Hybritech Inc. v. Monoclonal Antibodies, Inc., 802 F.2d 1367, 1384, 231 USPQ 81, 93 (Fed. Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 480 U.S. 947 (1987). Since we have determined that the teachings and suggestions that would have been fairly derived from Schaefer and Ghoneim would not have made the subject matter as a whole of independent claims 1 and 10 on appeal obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of appellant's invention, we must refuse to sustain the examiner's rejection of those claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103. In addition, we observe that it follows from the above 77Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007