Applied Materials wins at PTAB in Ex parte CUVALCI; PTAB mentions "the epitome of hindsight"

The discussion section begins:


We reverse the Examiner’s rejection for the reasons set forth in
Appellants’ Appeal and Reply Briefs.
We add the following for emphasis.
As the Federal Circuit has explained, “rejections on obviousness
grounds cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements; instead, there
must be some articulated reasoning
with some rational underpinning to
support the legal conclusion of obviousness.”
In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988
(Fed. Cir. 2006)



As to hindsight


This argument is unpersuasive because an examiner’s
prior art searches are the epitome of hindsight, and the Examiner has not
explained why or how a person of ordinary skill in the art would formulate
the “simple text search” in
the absence of hindsight.



link: http://e-foia.uspto.gov/Foia/RetrievePdf?system=BPAI&flNm=fd2013007850-06-29-2015-1