Appeal 2006-2711
Application 10/662,935
Plastics, Inc., 75 F.3d 1568, 1573, 37 USPQ2d 1626, 1629-30 (Fed. Cir.
1996). As stated in Dystar,
an implicit motivation to combine exists not only
when a suggestion may be gleaned from the prior
art as a whole, but when the “improvement” is
technology-independent and the combination of
references results in a product or process that is
more desirable, for example because it is stronger,
cheaper, cleaner, faster, lighter, smaller, more
durable, or more efficient. Because the desire to
enhance commercial opportunities by improving a
product or process is universal – and even
common-sensical – we have held that there exists
in these situations a motivation to combine prior
art references even absent any hint of suggestion in
the references themselves. In such situations, the
proper question is whether the ordinary artisan
possesses knowledge and skills rendering him
capable of combining the prior art references.
Dystar, 464 F.3d at 1368, 80 USPQ2d at 1651.
While Warren does not expressly state the benefit of forming the stud
10 as one piece with the wall of part 8, the difficulty of tightening nuts onto
freely rotatable through bolts, sometimes requiring one hand and tool to fix
the bolt head against rotation while tightening the nut with a second hand
and tool, was notoriously well known at the time of Appellant’s invention.
The benefit of integrally forming the bolt or threaded member with one of
the parts to be secured, such that the threaded member is fixed against
rotation, is clearly not limited to the field of beer racking but, rather, is
technology-independent, and would have been recognized as such by one of
ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, one of ordinary skill in the art of shower
arm arrangements would have readily understood how to form the threaded
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