Obviousness

An analysis of the obviousness of US patent 12102368 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 cannot be fully performed with the information provided. To conduct a proper obviousness analysis, the following are required:

1. Full Text of the Claims of US12102368: The independent claims, in their entirety, are necessary to determine the scope of the invention and compare them against prior art. Only an abstract summary of the claims is available in the provided "Patent summary" section.
2. Specific Prior Art References (Documents): The "Prior art" section of the provided patent text lists "metatarsal," "bone," "guide," "fixation," and "positioning guide" as "Prior art keywords" and "2015-07-14" as a "Prior art date." These are keywords and a date, not specific patent or non-patent literature documents that can be combined for an obviousness argument.

While the "Legal status" section mentions that US12102368B2 claims priority from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/981,335, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,622,805 (US9622805B2), this earlier application/patent is typically considered a parent or continuity application. Subject matter disclosed in a parent application that supports the claims of a continuation application generally does not serve as prior art against the continuation application for obviousness purposes under 35 U.S.C. § 103, provided the claims of US12102368 are fully supported by the disclosure of US9622805B2. Without additional specific prior art documents, identifying combinations and motivations for a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine them is not possible.

Therefore, without the complete claims of US12102368 and a list of specific prior art documents (e.g., patents or publications cited during prosecution, or other relevant prior art), a comprehensive obviousness analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103, including identifying combinations of references and motivations to combine them, cannot be completed.