Appeal No. 96-2821
Application 08/015,007
preponderance of evidence showing that a person having ordinary
skill in the art would have arrived at the claimed thickness
range of at least 0.6 mm based on the suggestions in Iversen as
the examiner proposes. The remaining references do not cure this
deficiency.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
A. Due process
1. Applicants argue that the examiner has deprived them of
due process of law. (Paper 23 at 6-7.) The due-process argument
is not stated with specificity, but Applicants complain that the3
examiner has not adequately made all of the findings set forth in
Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17-18 (1966). Assuming,
arguendo, that a failure to make out an prima facie case of
obviousness is a deprivation of due process under the Fifth
Amendment to the United States Constitution, the constitutional
dimension adds nothing to the otherwise routine analysis of the
rejection. Since Applicants have not identified any uniquely
constitutional dimension to their argument, we consider this
issue as subsumed in their attack on the examiner's prima facie
case.
3 For instance, we are left to assume that Applicants
refer to the due-process requirement in the Fifth Amendment to
the United States Constitution.
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