Appeal 2006-3236
Inter Partes Reexamination Control No. 95/000,006
78 USPQ2d at 1336. "[T]he 'motivation-suggestion-teaching' test asks not
merely what the references disclose, but whether a person of ordinary skill in
the art, possessed with the understandings and knowledge reflected in the
prior art, and motivated by the general problem facing the inventor, would
have been led to make the combination recited in the claims." Id. at 988,
78 USPQ2d at 1337. Motivation to combine references "may come
explicitly from statements in the prior art, the knowledge of one of ordinary
skill in the art, or, in some cases the nature of the problem to be solved."
In re Kotzab, 217 F.3d 1365, 1370, 55 USPQ2d 1313, 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2000).
Brahmbhatt discloses that conventional prior art pockets that support a
BGA integrated circuit package along the peripheral bottom surface of the
package have the problem that they allow possible contact with the solder
ball terminals. See col. 1, ll. 61-65. Brahmbhatt discloses that the solution
to the problem is to use an inclined surface to support the edge of the
package. See col. 3, ll. 8-12.
The level of ordinary skill in the art is best evidenced by the
references. See In re GPAC Inc., 57 F.3d 1573, 1579, 35 USPQ2d 1116,
1121 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (the Board did not err in adopting the approach that
the level of skill in the art was best determined by the references of record).
Here, Brahmbhatt evidences that a person of ordinary skill in the art is an
ordinary designer of semiconductor trays. One of ordinary skill in the
semiconductor tray art, reading Brahmbhatt, would have been informed of
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