Appeal No. 2005-2178
Application 09/969,882
in the art would have found in and inferred from Geraldson, Tisdale and Whisenant in light of
appellant’s arguments. On this basis, we find substantial evidence in the record supporting the
examiner’s position that one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized from the
teachings of Tisdale that residual fertilizer sources remained in the reservoir container of
Geraldson used in a first planting and would have planted a second set of seeds or seedlings in
the same reservoir container to take advantage of the residual fertilizer sources for cost
efficiency.
We find one of ordinary skill in this art would have recognized that Geraldson would
have taught the high rate application of fertilizers, indeed, at a “per unit soil . . . about 10 times
that in the field,” to a potting mix which is disclosed to include an unspecified amount of
composted material, in order to optimize the production of plants from seedlings for harvest in
the closed reservoir container for a single season or session, and that Tisdale would have taught
that high rate, optimized application of fertilizers in a field operation on a seasonal basis results
in residual amounts of fertilizers available for the next growing season. This person would have
further recognized that Tisdale would have taught that among the limiting factors on the amount
of fertilizer available to plants in field operations in the same season or residually the following
season is leaching, and that Geraldson would have taught that leaching is controlled in the
reservoir container, thus making more fertilizer available to the plants. This person further
would have recognized that Geraldson would have taught that the potting mix can last for several
growing seasons and that pest control can be applied in the water supplied to the reservoir, in
which respect, Whisenant would also have taught this person that fungicides can be applied in
the same manner.
On this record, we determine that one of ordinary skill in this art would thus have
recognized that a residual amount of fertilizers and composted materials would remain in the
potting mixture in a reservoir container after harvesting the plants grown from seeds or seedlings
in the growing season or session for which the materials were assembled in the reservoir
container, and that these ingredients are available for use in a following season or session either
with additional fertilizers and potting mix to grow the same amount of plants from seeds or
seedlings to harvest as in the first season or session, or without the addition of fertilizers and
potting mix to grow a smaller number of plants from seeds or seedlings to harvest. Indeed,
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