Appeal 2007-2312
Application 09/681,815
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. Sakraida
and Anderson's-Black Rock are illustrative-a court must
ask whether the improvement is more than the
predictable use of prior art elements according to their
established functions.
KSR, 127 S. Ct. at 1740, 82 USPQ2d at 1396.
ANALYSIS
We affirm the rejection of claims 1-23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Appellant
does not provide a substantive argument as to the separate patentability of claims
3-12, and 15-23 that depend from claims 1 and 13, respectively, which are the sole
independent claims for each group. Since Appellant argues independent claims 1
and 13 as a group, we address only claim 1 as representative of the independent
claims and, for the reasons that follow, we affirm the rejection of claims 1 and 13.
We also affirm the rejections of dependent claims 3-12, and 15-23 since Appellant
has not challenged such with any reasonable specificity (See In re Nielson, 816
F.2d 1567, 1572, 2 USPQ2d 1525, 1528 (Fed. Cir. 1987)). Also, Appellant argues
the separate patentability of dependent claims 2 and 14, and we affirm the rejection
of these claim for the reasons as set forth infra.
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