Appeal 2007-0921
Application 10/793,878
Following these principles may be more difficult in other cases
than it is here because the claimed subject matter may involve
more than the simple substitution of one known element for
another or the mere application of a known technique to a piece
of prior art ready for the improvement. Often, it will be
necessary for a court to look to interrelated teachings of
multiple patents; the effects of demands known to the design
community or present in the marketplace; and the background
knowledge possessed by a person having ordinary skill in the
art, all in order to determine whether there was an apparent
reason to combine the known elements in the fashion claimed
by the patent at issue. To facilitate review, this analysis should
be made explicit. See In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 . . .
(“[R]ejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by
mere conclusory statements; instead, there must be some
articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to
support the legal conclusion of obviousness”).
KSR, 127 S. Ct. at 1740-41, 82 USPQ2d at 1396.
Here, the Examiner has asserted that it would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art to add a vacuum device to an injection sleeve
(receiving chamber) of Carden to “prevent oxidation at the injection cavity”
(Answer 4) and “in order to prevent any oxidation during the melting state,
which can cause an explosion” (Answer 7).
Carden discloses two embodiments wherein a preheat oven 2 (Fig. 3
or Fig. 4) is open to ambient air/oxygen for preheating billets 1 (Fig. 3 or
Fig. 4). The billets are made from a blend of a powdered metal alloy and
ceramic particles (Carden, col. 4, ll. 45-63). Carden discloses dropping the
preheated semi-solid billets into an open inlet of a receiving chamber 3 (Fig.
3) of a die casting apparatus 4 (Fig. 3) after the preheating in one
embodiment, with optional further heating in a tray 26 (Fig. 4) in a second
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