Appeal No. 97-2147 Page 8
Application No. 08/512,477
1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988). Rejections based
on
§ 103 must rest on a factual basis with these facts being
interpreted without hindsight reconstruction of the invention
from the prior art. The examiner may not, because of doubt
that the invention is patentable, resort to speculation,
unfounded assumption or hindsight reconstruction to supply
deficiencies in the factual basis for the rejection. See In
re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017, 154 USPQ 173, 177 (CCPA 1967),
cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1057 (1968).
The claims under appeal all recite a vertical blind
apparatus comprising, inter alia, an elongated headrail, a
horizontally extending actuator shaft, a plurality of slat
carriages, a plurality of slat carriers, means for turning the
slat carriers in response to turning of the actuator shaft, a
control carriage having a control shaft, a first spur gear on
the
control shaft, a second spur gear meshing with the first spur
gear, a worm gear connected to the second spur gear for
rotating the actuator shaft, and a wand connected to the
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