Appeal 2007-2355
Application 10/006,952
provide distance information, only Bork provides direction information (See
Bork, col. 2, l. 32). In addition, Bork would have provided continuous
direction and distance updates (e.g., when one or both persons were moving)
when combined with the teachings of Hendrey (See Bork, col. 2, ll. 33-35).
Thus, we find Bork and Hendrey have complementary features that would
have reasonably lead an artisan having ordinary skill and common sense to
combine their teachings in the manner suggested by the Examiner. Our
reviewing court has stated: “[t]he use of patents as references is not limited
to what the patentees describe as their own inventions or to the problems
with which they are concerned. They are part of the literature of the art,
relevant for all they contain.” In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1333 (Fed. Cir.
1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006, 1009 (CCPA 1968)).
Therefore, we find Appellant’s argument that Hendrey would change Bork’s
principal of operation to be unsupported by the evidence.
Moreover, after carefully considering the record before us, we
conclude the Examiner’s proffered combination of Bork and Hendrey
reasonably teaches and/or suggests Appellant’s claimed invention in terms
of familiar elements (e.g., cell phones, GPS location systems, and
BLUETOOTH short-range wireless communication systems) that would
have been combined by an artisan having ordinary skill and common sense
using known methods to achieve a predictable result at the time of the
invention. See KSR, 127 S. Ct. at 1739-40. “The combination of familiar
elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does
no more than yield predictable results.” Leapfrog Enter., Inc. v. Fisher-
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