Appeal 2007-0705
Application 10/431,127
attaching the bath scale mats of Reibold and Artwick to a bath scale with
predictable success since Gillespie and Vela evince that a flexible magnetic
substrate can be removably attached to a horizontal surface receptive thereof
and Vaghi demonstrates such attachment to a vertical surface. Thus, we
agree with the Examiner that one of ordinary skill in this art would have
combined the applied references and thus, would have been led to substitute
one removably attachable fastener for another.
Accordingly, the Examiner has established that prima facie one of
ordinary skill in this art routinely following the combined teachings of
Artwick, Reibold, Vaghi, Gillespie, and Vela, would have reasonably arrived
at the claimed bath scale mat encompassed by claim 1, including all of the
elements thereof arranged as required therein, without resort to Appellants’
Specification. See, e.g., KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc.,
127 S. Ct. 1727, 1739, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395 (2007) (a patent claiming a
combination of elements known in the prior art is obvious if the
improvement is no more than the predictable use of the prior art elements
according to their established functions); In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 985-88,
78 USPQ2d 1329, 1334-337 (Fed. Cir. 2006); see also In re Keller,
642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981);1 In re Siebentritt,
1 The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a
secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the
structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed
invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the
references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of
the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill
in the art.
Keller, 642 F.2d at 425, 208 USPQ at 881.
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