Appeal No. 2001-1489 Page 4
Application No. 09/177,695
agency tribunal must make findings of relevant facts, and present its reasoning in
sufficient detail that the court may conduct meaningful review of the agency action.”
Ibid. at 277 F.3d 1346, 61 USPQ2d 1435. “Remand for these purposes is required.”
Ibid. at 277 F.3d 1346, 61 USPQ2d 1436.“
Since the Board also serves as a board of review, not a de novo examination
tribunal (35 U.S.C. § 6(b)), in order for the Board to make a meaningful review of the
rejection on appeal, examiner likewise must present a full and reasoned explanation in
support of the final rejection. As we explain below, that has not been done here.
Accordingly, we remand the application to give the examiner a new opportunity to more
thoroughly present the grounds of rejection. If the opportunity is taken, examiner should
consider amending the grounds of rejection so that, as we explain below, a stronger
question of patentability might be raised. Accordingly, we will vacate the present
rejection and remand the application to give the examiner an opportunity to consider
applying a new ground of rejection.
Claims 1-10 and 11 are directed to a method for cosmetically improving human
skin through a treatment regime and a skin treatment regime product, respectively.
Claims 1-11 are rejected as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Van Scott, Dutch
Patent, German Patent and the Jacqueline Cochran Advertisement. Accordingly,
examiner has the burden of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness for the
claimed method of cosmetically improving human skin through a treatment regime and
In re Lee, 277 F.3d 1338, 1342, 61 USPQ2d 1430, 1433-4 (Fed. Cir. 2002).
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