Appeal No. 2007-0507
Application 10/737,051
common sense without the need for a specific teaching in a reference. See KSR,
127 S. Ct. at 1742-43, 82 USPQ2d at 1397 (“Rigid preventative rules that deny
factfinders recourse to common sense, however, are neither necessary under our
case law nor consistent with it.”); DyStar Textilfarben GmbH & Co. Deutschland
KG v. C. H. Patrick Co., 464 F.3d 1356, 1367, 80 USPQ2d 1641, 1650 (Fed. Cir.
2006) (“Our suggestion test is in actuality quite flexible and not only permits, but
requires, consideration of common knowledge and common sense”); Alza Corp. v.
Mylan Labs., Inc., 464 F.3d 1286, 1291, 80 USPQ2d 1001, 1004 (Fed. Cir. 2006)
(“There is flexibility in our obviousness jurisprudence because a motivation may
be found implicitly in the prior art. We do not have a rigid test that requires an
actual teaching to combine …”).
In our view, the Examiner’s conclusion that it would have been obvious to
modify Ohgami so as to employ plural (e.g., two) bosses (i.e., battery pillars) and
associated lifting features (i.e., cam surface 65 and extension surface 66, including
cavity 67) to prevent tilting of the battery during insertion reflects the common
knowledge and common sense of the artisan. It is an elementary principle of
physics that two spaced-apart support points provide greater stability than does a
single support point. The artisan therefore would have recognized that the stability
of Ohgami’s mechanism can be improved by providing the battery with two
spaced-apart battery pillars and the lifter with corresponding cam surfaces 65 and
extension surfaces 66, including cavities 67. The Examiner was therefore correct
to hold that the subject matter of claim 1 would have been prima facie obvious
over Ohgami.
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