Appeal No. 95-4199
Application No. 08/068,445
presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. In re
Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir.
1993); In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443,
1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992). Only if that burden is met does the
burden of coming forward with evidence or argument shift to
the applicants. Id. If the examiner fails to establish a
prima facie case, the rejection is improper and will be
overturned. In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596,
1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
With respect to product claims 1 through 7 and 12, the
examiner takes the position that it would have been obvious to
provide propylene-phenylene on the end of the polysiloxane
segment of the polysiloxane/polyester (carbonate) block
copolymer described in Schmidt inasmuch as the secondary
references, such as Vaughn Jr., teach that “using a
polysiloxane having a Si-C
[C includes propylene-phenylene] linkage in a polysiloxane-
polycarbonate copolymer yields a product which has improved
hydrolytic stability.” See Answer, page 4. Although we do
not doubt that it would have been obvious to employ a silicon-
propylene-phenylene linkage in a polysiloxane-polycarbonate
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