Appeal No. 98-1239
Application No. 08/742,372
and (2) is attached to the cylindrical housing by a
bayonet-type connection that includes orthogonally arranged
slots which cooperate with a finger 52 on the plate 14.
There is simply nothing in the combined teachings of Louette
and Davidson that would have led one of ordinary skill in the
art to provide Louette's flexible coupling with a
"circumferential groove" in view of the disparate teachings
of Davidson. In our view, the only suggestion for the
examiner's combination of the disparate teachings of the
applied references improperly stems from the appellants'
disclosure, and not from the prior art. As the
court in Uniroyal, 837 F.2d at 1051, 5 USPQ2d at 1438 stated
"it is impermissible to use the claims as a frame and the
prior art references as a mosaic to piece together a
facsimile of the claimed invention."
As a final matter, we note that the appellants have
submitted evidence of nonobviousness in the form of a
declaration by Hauck. However, since the prior art relied on
by the examiner fails to establish a prima facie case of
obviousness, we need not consider the appellants' evidence of
nonobviousness. In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1076, 5 USPQ2d
1596, 1600 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
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