Appeal 2007-1780
Application 10/340,127
When a work is available in one field of endeavor,
design incentives and other market forces can
prompt variations of it, either in the same field or a
different one. If a person of ordinary skill can
implement a predictable variation, § 103 likely
bars its patentability. For the same reason, if a
technique has been used to improve one device,
and a person of ordinary skill in the art would
recognize that it would improve similar devices in
the same way, using the technique is obvious
unless its actual application is beyond his or her
skill.
KSR, 127 S. Ct. at 1740.
This reasoning is applicable here. Indeed, we find the Examiner’s
proffered motivation reasonable given that pluggable earphones are
notoriously well known in the art, as evidenced by Grasso and Doss.
Appellants counter in the Reply Brief that the “easy replacement of
earphones” is complicated by the fact that “the earphones of Doss are
embedded in a helmet.” (Reply Brief 1). In response, we find the Examiner
merely looks to Doss for the teaching of a quick-release connector (See
Answer 4). Doss must be read, not in isolation, but for what it fairly teaches
in combination with the prior art as a whole. One cannot show
nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are
based on combinations of references. In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d
1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Here, we find an artisan would have appreciated the convenience of
the “two member ‘no-look’ quick connect/disconnect connector” taught by
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