Appeal 2006-3357
Application 10/310,311
See E-Pass Techs., Inc. v. 3Com Corp., 343 F.3d 1364, 1369, 67 USPQ2d
1947, 1950 (Fed. Cir. 2003).
When a work is available in one field of endeavor,
design incentives and other market forces can
prompt variations of it, either in the same field or a
different one. If a person of ordinary skill can
implement a predictable variation, §103 likely bars
its patentability. For the same reason, if a
technique has been used to improve one device,
and a person of ordinary skill in the art would
recognize that it would improve similar devices in
the same way, using the technique is obvious
unless its actual application is beyond his or her
skill.
KSR Int’l. Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 1740, 82 USPQ2d 1385,
1396 (2007). We must ask whether the improvement is more than the
predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions.
Id.
When the improvement is technology-independent and a combination
of elements of prior art results in a product or process that is more desirable,
an implicit motivation to combine exists 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 elements. DyStar Textilfarben GmbH &
Co. Deutschland KG v. C.H. Patrick Co., 464 F.3d 1356, 1368, 80 USPQ2d
1641, 1651 (Fed. Cir. 2006).
DISCUSSION
Claim 1 does not positively recite a semiconductor device. Rather,
claim 1 recites a system “for securing at least one semiconductor device,”
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