Appeal No. 2005-2760
Application 09/915,963
satisfy the same requirement for a wide range of wavelengths
demanded by the Wicks antenna.
Appellant’s argument appears to presuppose that the artisan
would make a direct substitution, or a bodily incorporation, of
Ogot’s ground plane for Wicks’ ground plane. Clearly, the test
of obviousness is not whether features of a secondary reference
may be bodily incorporated into the primary reference’s
structure, nor whether the claimed invention is expressly
suggested in any one or all of references; rather, the test is
what the combined teachings of the references would have
suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. It is not
necessary that a device shown in one reference can be physically
inserted into the device shown in another reference to justify
combining their teachings in support of a rejection. In re
Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981).
Wicks lacks a teaching of a symmetrical disk shaped finite
ground plane, though the reference teaches an antenna structure
having a ground plane. Ogot is alleged by the examiner to teach
the symmetrical disk shaped finite ground plane, an allegation
which has not been denied by appellant, and Ogot also provides a
teaching of advantages attained by using such a symmetrical disk
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