Appeal 2007-0987
Application 09/810,992
reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness’ . . . [H]owever, the analysis need not seek out precise teachings
directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court
can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of
ordinary skill in the art would employ.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127
S. Ct. 1727, 1741, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (2007)(quoting In re Kahn, 441
F.3d 977, 988, 78 USPQ2d 1329, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2006)).
35 U.S.C. § 102(a) REJECTION
With respect to claims 18-20, Appellants’ arguments in response to
the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) rejection initially assert (Br. 6) that the
Forecast Pro reference is not a valid reference since the Examiner has not
established that such reference has a publication date prior to the March 16,
2001 filing date of Appellants’ application. After reviewing the arguments
presented by the Examiner (Answer 13), however, we find ourselves in
agreement with the Examiner’s position as stated in the Answer. In our
view, the skilled artisan would have recognized and appreciated that the
numbers “20001209085500” appearing at the bottom of the Forecast Pro
web pages correspond to the date, i.e., December 9, 2000, that the web pages
were publicly available. It is our opinion that, absent any evidence
forthcoming from Appellants that proves otherwise, the printed dates on the
Forecast Pro web pages retrieved from the “archive.org” web site, as well as
the copyright date of 2000 on the last of the retrieved web pages, establish
that the cited Forecast Pro reference is a an applicable prior art reference. In
re Epstein, 32 F.3d 1559, 1567, 31 USPQ2d 1817, 1822 (Fed. Cir. 1994)
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