Appeal No. 1998-2921 Page 4
Application No. 08/511,451
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).
Claim 19 (the only independent claim on appeal) reads as
follows:
A method of manufacturing at least two different
configurations of sealing rings adapted for sealing a
space between an inner surface of a pipe socket provided
with an annular groove and an outer surface of a spigot
end introduced into the socket at a pipe joint, each said
sealing ring comprising a first annular element and a
second annular element that are bound to each other and
with each element being of differing hardness, said
method comprising:
providing at least two said second annular elements
and two substantially identical said first annular
elements, said first elements each having at least two
binding surfaces having respective first and second
locations on said first element,
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