Appeal No. 2003-0491 Page 6
Application No. 09/584,173
provide means to prevent a rod from falling to the ground or into the water (answer,
page 5).
As stated by our reviewing court in In re Kotzab, 217 F.3d 1365, 1369-70, 55
USPQ2d 1313, 1316 (Fed. Cir. 2000):
Most if not all inventions arise from a combination of old elements.
Thus, every element of a claimed invention may often be found in the
prior art. However, identification in the prior art of each individual part
claimed is insufficient to defeat patentability of the whole claimed
invention. Rather, to establish obviousness based on a combination of
the elements disclosed in the prior art, there must be some motivation,
suggestion or teaching of the desirability of making the specific
combination that was made by the applicant [citations omitted].
In this instance, we find no suggestion in Becker or Creviston to make the
modification to Becker proposed by the examiner. Becker is directed to an automatic
fish catching device which operates to pull the line to set the hook in the fish’s mouth to
catch the fish when a fish tugs on the line, while Creviston is directed to a lure and
alarm device for periodically imparting motion to the fishing line and for activating an
alarm when a fish pulls on the line. As disclosed by Creviston in column 4, lines 17-24,
the reel 90 on fishing pole 12 may be of a conventional manual type which permits the
fisherman to reel in the catch after being alerted to a bite or reel 90 may be a spring-
loaded reel, known in the art, including a latch mechanism for automatically reeling in
the fish after the fish has exerted a pull on the line. It is not apparent to us why one of
ordinary skill in the art reading the disclosures of both Becker and Creviston would have
been led to attach a fishing rod to the device of Becker. Rather, Creviston would
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