Appeal No. 1999-0347 Page 12
Application No. 08/804,635
For the reasons stated above, the decision of the
examiner to reject claims 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14 and 16 to
18 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is reversed.
The obviousness rejections
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 1 to 4, 8 and
10 to 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, 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). A prima facie case of
obviousness is established by presenting evidence that would
have led one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the
relevant teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See In
re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir.
1988) and In re Lintner, 458 F.2d 1013, 1016, 173 USPQ 560,
562 (CCPA 1972). Evidence of a suggestion, teaching, or
motivation to modify a reference may flow from the prior art
references themselves, the knowledge of one of ordinary skill
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