Appeal No. 2001-1448
Application No. 09/121,036
24 USPQ2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992)), which is established when
the teachings of the prior art itself would appear to have
suggested the claimed subject matter to one of ordinary skill in
the art (see In re Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783, 26 USPQ2d 1529, 1531
(Fed. Cir. 1993)). The conclusion that the claimed subject
matter is prima facie obvious must be supported by evidence, as
shown by some objective teaching in the prior art or by knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art that
would have led that individual 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).
Looking at the examiner's rejection of claims 12 through 17
and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Song
in view of Kikuchi, we observe that the only difference
identified by the examiner between the subject matter of
appellant's independent claim 12 and the chip package seen in
Song is that the outer lead portions of Song's chip package
(e.g., Fig. 5) are not "in contact with" the side and bottom
surface portions of the package body as required in claim 12 on
appeal. To account for this difference the examiner turns to
Kikuchi, urging that this reference discloses (in Fig. 3) leads
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