Appeal No. 96-1465
Application No. 08/115,299
With respect to the rejection of claim 1 on Fukuda
taken alone, the rejection concentrates on the fact that no
portion of the rear surface of the display device in Fukuda is
directly exposed to electrical components mounted on the
printed circuit board because of the reflector board 2b
[answer, pages 3-4]. The rejection, however, makes no mention
of the claim limitation that the protective base is metallic.
Appellant correctly argues that there is no suggestion in
Fukuda that the reflector board is made from a metallic
material [reply brief, page 4]. The examiner simply concludes
that the invention of claim 1 would have been obvious to the
artisan without addressing the metallic limitation. Since
appellant argues the nonobviousness of this metallic
limitation, and since the examiner offers no analysis
regarding the obviousness of this limitation, we are
constrained to hold that, on this record, the examiner has
failed to establish a prima facie case of the obviousness of
claim 1 based on the teachings of Fukuda alone.
Appellant also argues that the reflector board 2b in
Fukuda is part of the display device so that it cannot be
considered to be a protective base between the printed circuit
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