Appeal 2007-3258
Application 10/916,195
1 What Goodyear was seeking was a means to keep detrimental oxygen
2 away from portions of a tire. Cahill had already solved the problem in
3 bottles using a copolymer layer disposed between PET layers of a bottle.
4 Goodyear used the same copolymer layer in a tire for the same purpose.
5 It may also be true that Katsuki's layer A was not a oxygen
6 scavenging layer. But, layer A was designed by Katsuki to keep oxygen
7 contained within the tire. In addition, Katsuki is not the whole story when it
8 comes to confining oxygen to particular parts of a tire. Goodyear tells us
9 that innerliners have been used on the inner surfaces of tires to retain
10 inflation air within the tire, i.e., prevent oxygen from leaking out of the tire.
11 Specification, page 1:8-10.
12 What is apparent from the facts of this case is that Goodyear has used
13 a known technique (a polyester oxygen scavenging layer) for its known
14 purpose (scavenging oxygen) in tires in which there is a known need for
15 maintaining oxygen away from various portions of the tire (Specification,
16 page 1:8-10). The use of known materials for their intended purpose is
17 strong evidence of obviousness. See KSR and Anderson's-Blackrock, supra.
18 See also In re Trans Texas Holdings Corp., Nos. 2006-1599, -1600, slip op.
19 at 18-19 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 22, 2007) (the board did not err in concluding that it
20 would have been obvious to combine the indexed loan accounts disclosed in
21 Murkherjee with the well-known practice of offering loans secured by
22 mortgaged real estate). Those skilled in the art, therefore, are necessarily
23 "motivated" (to use Goodyear's word) to use known elements for their
24 intended purpose.
12
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