Appeal No. 95-2721 Page 7
Application No. 08/054,927
Since all the limitations of independent claim 1 are not
found in Hilgers, the decision of the examiner to reject
independent claim 1, as well as dependent claim 2, under
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) is reversed.
The obviousness issue
The decision of the examiner to reject claims 1 through
16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings
of the references would have suggested to one of ordinary
skill in the art. See In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591, 18
USPQ2d 1089, 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1991) and In re Keller, 642 F.2d
413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). Furthermore, the
conclusion that the claimed subject matter is obvious must be
supported by evidence, as shown by some objective teaching in
the prior art or by knowledge generally available to one of
ordinary skill in the art that would have led that individual
to combine the relevant teachings of the references to arrive
at the claimed invention. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071,
1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988). Rejections based
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