Monday, November 19, 2012

Obvious to substitute

Ex parte BONVALOT discusses substitution:

It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to substitute the adhesive conductive paths of Booth for the metal conductive paths of Zhao because they are merely alternative ways to electrically connect electrical devices. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-16 (2007) (a “patent for a combination which only unites old elements with no change in their respective functions ... obviously withdraws what already is known into the field of its monopoly and diminishes the resources available to skillful men.”) (quoting Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equip. Corp., 340 U.S. 147, 152-153 (1950)).


Further, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to substitute the single conductor per pad configuration of Booth/Zhao with a multiple conductor per pad configuration because using redundant electrical connections between two nodes is a known, predictable engineering expedient for reducing the problems inherent in electrical transmission. See KSR, 550 U.S. at 417 (“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”); Perfect Web Tech., Inc. v. InfoUSA, Inc., 587 F.3d 1324, 1329 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (“while an analysis of obviousness always depends on evidence ... it also may include recourse to logic, judgment, and common sense available to the person of ordinary skill that do not necessarily require explication in any reference”).

(...)
See Perfect Web, 587 F.3d at 1329; id. at 1328 (“it was proper for a patent examiner to rely on ‘common knowledge and common sense of the person of ordinary skill in the art without any specific hint or suggestion in a particular reference.’”) (citing In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385, 1390 (CCPA 1969)).



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