A. Legal Standards In Graham v. John Deere Co. of Kansas City, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), the Supreme Court set out a framework for assessing obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 that requires consideration of four factors: (1) the “level of
“While the sequence of these questions might be reordered in any particular case,” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 407 (2007), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has repeatedly emphasized that “it is error to reach a conclusion of obviousness until all those factors are considered,” WBIP v. Kohler, 829 F.3d 1317, 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2016).7 B.
“Not all such factors may be present in every case, and one or more of these or other factors may predominate in a particular case.” Id. Petitioner argues that a person having ordinary skill in the art (“PHOSITA”) would have (i) a Bachelor’s degree (or higher degree) in an academic area emphasizing electrical engineering or mechanical engineering or a similar technical field; (ii) a working knowledge of computing devices and their associated hardware (including input/output devices) and software; and (iii) two to four years of experience designing and developing haptic interfaces and the associated technologies, including various damping techniques.
“A more specific application of this general principle is that ‘[a] prima facie case of obviousness typically exists when the ranges’” recited in a claim “overlap the ranges disclosed in the prior art.’” Id. (quoting In re Peterson, 315 F.3d 1325, 1329 (Fed. Cir. 2003)).
10 As explained above, given our determination that Petitioner has not made a sufficient showing that the cited references teach or suggest the critical, claimed range of 40–200 Hz, we need not address Patent Owner’s other arguments, including, for example, that the frequency response of Kajiwara’s deformable members does not apply to ferrofluid or a device like the one described in Miyazaki.