Appeal No. 96-1353
Application 07/696,973
THE REJECTION
Claims 1, 3 through 6, 8 through 55 and 57 through 89 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Jasper
in view of Ashok and MacKay.
The rejection is explained in the Examiner's Answer.
The opposing viewpoints of the appellants are set forth in
the Brief and the Reply Brief.
OPINION
The rejection in this case is that the subject matter of the
claims is obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103. The test for
obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would
have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re
Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In
establishing a prima facie case of obviousness under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103, it is incumbent upon the examiner to provide a reason why
one of ordinary skill in the art would have been led to modify a
prior art reference or to combine reference teachings to arrive
at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972, 973
(Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite
motivation must stem from some teaching, suggestion or inference
in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge generally
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