Appeal No. 2005-0175 Page 10
Application No. 09/241,700
the art. See In re Boe, 355 F.2d 961, 965, 148 USPQ 507, 510
(CCPA 1966). It is well established that a suggestion for the
modification of references “. . . may come from the nature of the
problem to be solved, leading inventors to look to references
relating to possible solutions to that problem.” See Pro-Mold &
Tool Co. v. Great Lakes Plastics, Inc., 75 F.3d 1568, 1573, 37
USPQ2d 1626, 1630 (Fed. Cir. 1996), citing In re Rinehart, 531
F.2d 1048, 1054, 189 USPQ 143, 149 (CCPA 1976) (considering the
problem to be solved in a determination of obviousness).
Moreover, a guarantee of success is not required. See In re
O'Farrell, 853 F.2d 894, 903, 7 USPQ2d 1673, 1681 (Fed. Cir.
1988). Rather, "[f]or obviousness under § 103, all that is
required is a reasonable expectation of success." Id. at 904,
7 USPQ2d at 1681.
Appellant’s contention that “Henley would have taught away
from mounting to a user wearable garment because mounting its
cameras in a manner disclosed by Winningstad would destroy the
panoramic capability” (reply brief, page 3) is not fairly
supported by the evidence of record.3 In particular, appellant’s
3
3 Indeed, appellant’s specification undercuts that argument
by not revealing any particular technical problems that appellant
overcame in fashioning a clothing mounted camera system to obtain
usable panoramic images therefrom. In this regard, we note that
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007