Appeal No. 2004-0753
Application No. 10/120,096
extend into the open space between the modules, as this
area would now have to be open so that logistics
members could be attached therethrough [main brief,
page 7 and 8].
The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a
secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure
of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention
must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references.
Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references
would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. In
re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981).
In the present case, the teaching by Yurgevich of the
desirability of providing a trailer body with an interior panel-
joining member having apertures for receiving logistics fasteners
and fittings would have furnished the artisan with ample
suggestion or motivation to similarly provide Higham’s interior
extrusion 13 or cap member 14 with such apertures, thereby
transforming it into a logistics plate member of the sort recited
in claim 37. The appellant’s arguments that this modification
would frustrate Higham’s desire for a well insulated vehicle body
and render the vehicle body inoperable are not well taken. To
begin with, the record contains no evidence to support the rather
dubious proposition that the provision of logistics apertures on
one of the many interior joining members in Higham’s vehicle body
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