Appeal No. 2000-0865 Page 7
Application No. 08/910,822
disclosure. The use of such hindsight knowledge to support an
obviousness rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is, of course,
impermissible. See, for example, W. L. Gore and Assocs., Inc.
v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1553, 220 USPQ 303, 312-13
(Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984).
In summary, we see no motivation in the applied prior art
of why one skilled in the art would have modified the torque
control system of Takasaki to make the modifications necessary
to arrive at the claimed invention. Thus, the examiner has
failed to meet the initial burden of presenting a prima facie
case of obviousness. It follows that we cannot sustain the
examiner's rejections of claims 1 to 4, 7 to 11, 17 and 18.
CONCLUSION
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