Appeal No. 98-1264 Page 3
Application No. 08/489,272
In reaching our decision on the issues raised in this
appeal, we have carefully assessed the claims, the prior art
applied against the claims, and the respective views of the
examiner and the appellants as set forth in the Answer and the
Brief. Since the rejection is under 35 U.S.C. § 103, we have
evaluated it on the basis that the examiner bears the initial
burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness (see In
re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed.
Cir. 1993)), which is established when the teachings of the
prior art itself would appear to have suggested the claimed
subject matter to one of ordinary skill in the art (see In re
Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783, 26 USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir.
1993)).
The appellants’ invention is directed to electrical
connectors of the type wherein a male element is slidably
received in a female element, and deals in particular with the
problem of providing low insertion forces for the male element
while maintaining an acceptable level of force acting against
extraction. As explained in the specification, the appellants
accomplish their objective by the use as the female element of
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