Appeal 2007-1792
Application 10/050,834
skill in the art would have been able to combine the lubrication port of Edwards
with the ball joint of Mizusawa using methods known in the art at the time the
invention was made. Moreover, each of the elements of Mizusawa and Edwards
combined by the Examiner performs the same function when combined as it does
in the prior art. Thus, such a combination would have yielded predictable results.
See Sakraida, 425 U.S. at 282, 189 USPQ at 453.
Claim 1 was a combination which only unites old elements with no change
in their respective functions and which yields predictable results. Thus, the
claimed subject matter likely would have been obvious under KSR. In addition,
neither Appellant’s Specification nor Appellant’s arguments present any evidence
that the addition of a lubrication port to a ball joint is uniquely challenging or
difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, the lubrication port of
Edwards is a technique that has been used to improve one device (the ball joint of
Edwards), and one of skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar
devices in the same manner. Because Appellant has not shown that the application
of the Edwards lubrication port to the ball joint of Mizusawa would have been
beyond the skill of one of skill in the art, we find using the technique would have
been obvious. Under those circumstances, the Examiner did not err in holding that
it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to modify the ball joint of Mizusawa with a lubrication port, as
taught by Edwards, to lubricate the ball joint. Because this is a case where the
improvement is no more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to
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