Appeal No. 1998-2294 Page 4
Application No. 08/546,298
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 of the references 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).
The appellants argue (brief, pp. 4-9) that the applied
prior art does not suggest the claimed subject matter. We
agree.
All the claims under appeal require the claimed removable
cap to include a contact means or contact assembly having (1)
a planar base member for attaching the contact means to the 1
1In claim 22, line 6, "said contact means" should be
amended to --said contact assembly-- for proper antecedent
basis.
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