Appeal No. 1998-2541
Application No. 08/608,372
presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. Note In re
Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir.
1992). If that burden is met, the burden then shifts to the
applicant to overcome the prima facie case with argument
and/or evidence. Obviousness is then determined on the basis
of the evidence as a whole and the relative persuasiveness of
the arguments. See Id.; In re Hedges, 783 F.2d 1038, 1039,
228 USPQ 685, 686 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d
1468, 1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir. 1984); and In re
Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1052, 189 USPQ 143, 147 (CCPA 1976).
Only those arguments actually made by appellant have been
considered in this decision. Arguments which appellant could
have made but chose not to make in the brief have not been
considered [see 37 CFR § 1.192(a)].
With respect to claims 2 and 5, the examiner notes that
Moe fails to teach a start of program detector. The examiner
cites Logan as teaching a clock/calendar unit for
automatically recording programs in a recorder at
preprogrammed times. The examiner asserts the obviousness of
combining the teachings of Moe and Logan. Appellant argues
that the claimed detection of the start of a program to be
-9-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007