Appeal No. 97-0903
Application No. 08/266,865
appellants have made no separate arguments with respect to any
of the dependent claims on appeal. Accordingly, all the
claims before us will stand or fall together. Note In re
King, 801 F.2d 1324, 1325, 231 USPQ 136, 137 (Fed. Cir. 1986);
In re Sernaker, 702 F.2d 989, 991, 217 USPQ 1, 3 (Fed. Cir.
1983). Therefore, we will consider the rejection against
independent claim 1 as representative of all the claims on
appeal.
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, it is
incumbent upon the examiner to establish a factual basis to
support the legal conclusion of obviousness. See In re Fine,
837 F.2d 1071, 1073, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988). In
so doing, the examiner is expected to make the factual
determinations set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S.
1, 17, 148 USPQ 459, 467 (1966), and to provide a reason why
one having ordinary skill in the pertinent art would have been
led to modify the prior art or to combine prior art references
to arrive at the claimed invention. Such reason must stem
from some teaching, suggestion or implication in the prior art
as a whole or knowledge generally available to one having
ordinary skill in the art. Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007