Appeal No. 2007-0793
Application No. 09/875,487
1 virtual shopping mall. The environment of the virtual shopping mall may
2 take on many different characteristics based upon user preferences. See
3 generally paragraphs 0079 through 0082. Sandus also discusses that the
4 shopping habits of the users may be monitored to gain marketing
5 information. See paragraphs 0006 and 0151. Sandus states that the virtual
6 shopping mall may include the functionality of a shopping cart. See
7 paragraph 0083. Sandus discloses no mechanism where users are presented
8 with a survey, i.e., ballot style rating scales and means to enter comments.
9 PRINCIPLES OF LAW
10 As was recently described in In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 78 USPQ2d
11 1329 (Fed. Cir. 2006):
12 [T]he “motivation-suggestion-teaching” test asks not merely what the
13 references disclose, but whether a person of ordinary skill in the art,
14 possessed with the understandings and knowledge reflected in the
15 prior art, and motivated by the general problem facing the inventor,
16 would have been led to make the combination recited in the claims.
17 From this it may be determined whether the overall disclosures,
18 teachings, and suggestions of the prior art, and the level of skill in the
19 art – i.e., the understandings and knowledge of persons having
20 ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention-support the legal
21 conclusion of obviousness. (internal citations omitted).
22 Id. at 988, 78 USPQ2d at 1337. To establish a prima facie case of
23 obviousness, the references being combined do not need to explicitly suggest
24 combining their teachings. See id. at 987-88, 78 USPQ2d at 1337-38 (“the
25 teaching, motivation, or suggestion may be implicit from the prior art as a
26 whole, rather than expressly stated in the references”). “’The test for an
27 implicit showing is what the combined teachings, knowledge of one of
28 ordinary skill in the art, and the nature of the problem to be solved as a
5
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