Appeal No. 96-0353
Application 08/099,220
Appellants argue that the examiner has identified no
motivation in the references which would lead one of ordinary
skill in the art to prepare optically translucent seams by use
of a process wherein fine current-conducting wire is embedded
in polymeric plastic material (brief, page 8).
The examiner argues that arriving at appellants’ claimed
method from the teachings of Griffith and Stilling merely
involves substituting one plastic-coated fabric material for
another (answer, pages 4-5). The seam so produced, the
examiner argues (answer, page 5), would have the
characteristic of appellants’ seam of being minimally visible,
i.e., being not optically objectionable to the naked eye at
normal viewing distance (specification, page 4, lines 12-15),
in spite of the presence of the conductive wire.
The examiner has not pointed out, and we do not
independently find, any teaching in the evidence relied upon
by the examiner which indicates that one of ordinary skill in
the art would have considered a seam containing a conductive
wire to be suitable for use in a sign as recited in
appellants’ claim 7. In order for a prima facie case of
obviousness to be established, the teachings from the prior
-5-5
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