Appeal No. 2006-1878 Page 12 Application No. 10/435,367 contains other oils, including conjugated linoleic acid. Kanter, Abstract, column 2, lines 5-21. According to the Examiner, it “would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to substitute one known supplemental oil/triglyceride for another.” Office action dated May 6, 2004, page 4. The Examiner also stated that the skilled artisan would have been motivated to add oat oil to McKeown’s supplement in order to reduce the incidence of gastric ulcers caused by high carbohydrate feed. Answer, page 13. Appellants argued that “[t[he addition of the Kanter et al. fat supplement, which uses oat oil to prevent the fat supplement from becoming rancid, has no purpose or function which would suggest its addition to” McKeown or Howes. Brief, page 38. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. Obviousness does not require an express suggestion to have modified the prior art. Kahn, 441 F.3d at 987-88, 78 USPQ2d at 1336. Knowledge of a problem and how to solve it may substitute for explicit directions. Id. Kanter states that fat sources utilized in feeds “all have short shelf-lives under field conditions and will tend to become rancid.” Kanter, column 1, lines 14-20. Fat is an essential component of McKeown’s supplement. McKeown, Abstract. The skilled worker would have recognized that McKeown’s feed supplement is susceptible to becoming rancid because of the presence of fats, but would have known from Kanter that replacing at least a portion of the fat with oat oil would have solved the problem. In our view, this establishes adequate motivation to have modified McKeown’s supplement with Kanter’s teaching. Since Appellants have not given sufficient reason to rebut this, we shall affirm the rejection as it applies to claims 3, 5-10, and 46.Page: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007