Appeal No. 96-1805
Application 08/200,432
The rejections are explained in the Examiner's Answer.
The opposing viewpoints of the appellants are set forth in
the Brief.
OPINION
The examiner has presented two rejections under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103, each of which relies on the combined teachings of at least
four references in order to support the conclusion that the
claimed subject matter would have been obvious. The guidance
provided us by our reviewing court for evaluation of such
rejections is that 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, 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 (BPAI 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 available to one of
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007