Appeal No. 2003-2125 Page 4
Application No. 09/168,153
1635, 1637 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902, 221 USPQ 1125, 1127
(Fed. Cir. 1984). When obviousness is based on a single prior art reference, there must
be a showing of a suggestion or motivation to modify the teachings of that reference.
See In re Kotzab, 217 F.3d 1365, 1370, 55 USPQ2d 1313, 1316-17 (Fed. Cir. 2000).
In the rejection before us in this appeal, the examiner determined that it would
have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person of ordinary skill in
the art to modify Drukier to apply it to a radiation field comprising radioisotopes involving
positron annihilation. We do not agree. In our view, there is no suggestion or
motivation in Drukier to modify the teachings of that reference to apply it to a radiation
field comprising radioisotopes involving positron annihilation. While obtaining
nuclear medicine images by detecting coincident events resulting from positron
annihilation was known in the art, we agree with the appellant that there is no teaching
or suggestion in Drukier to have modified Drukier so as to arrive at the claimed subject
matter. Accordingly, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 1 to 6 and 9 to 14
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
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