Appeal No. 2000-1449
Application No. 08/838,133
level of ordinary skill at the time the presently claimed invention
was made, i.e., the teachings of Sander and Arona-Delonghi viewed
as a whole, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from
appellant’s disclosure. Appellant’s view to the contrary is not
persuasive because it is predicated on the individual disclosures
of Sander and Arona-Delonghi vis-a-vis the claimed invention.
However, nonobviousness cannot be established by attacking the
references individually where, as here, the rejection is based upon
the teachings of a combination of references. In re Merck & Co.
Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097, 231 USPQ 375, 380 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
In light of the above, we consider that the reference evidence
adduced by the examiner establishes a prima facie case of
obviousness of claim 1. Notwithstanding appellant’s statement on
pages 6 and 13-14 of the main brief that the claims stand
independently of each other, appellant has not argued the merits of
claims 2-14, 16-20, 23-27, 31, 32, 37-39 and 42 with any reasonable
degree of specificity. Therefore, we consider that the reference
evidence adduced by the examiner also is sufficient to establish a
prima facie case of obviousness of these claims.
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