Appeal No. 99-0210
Application 08/732,285
closure having a groove 9 (claim 15), a separate hollow
chamber in the sealing pad (the unnumbered lower chamber;
claims 17, 19 and 21), a separate hollow chamber in the
sealing lip (the unnumbered upper chamber; claims 18, 20 and
21), and a foot 8 in the anchoring wedge (claim 26).
The examiner has not provided us with an explanation of
how the subject matter recited in claims 16 and 22-25 can be
read upon the seal disclosed in German ‘283, and we are at a
loss to determine this on our own. We therefore will not
sustain the Section 102 rejection of these claims.
The Rejections Under 35 U.S.C. § 103
A prima facie case of obviousness 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)). This is not to say, however, that the
claimed invention must expressly be suggested in any one or
all of the references, rather, the test for obviousness is
what the combined teachings of the references would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art (see Cable Elec.
Prods. v. Genmark, Inc., 770 F.2d 1015, 1025, 226 USPQ 881,
7
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