Appeal No. 96-1599
Application 07/968,421
does not teach the particular method steps recited in claim 1.
The rationale offered by the examiner that these steps
nonetheless would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art seeking improved efficiency amounts to an exercise
in specu-lation, unfounded assumptions and hindsight
reconstruction. It goes without saying that a person of
ordinary skill in the art would have viewed increased
efficiency to be a desirable objective. There is nothing,
however, in the Hatano disclosure or in the examiner’s
explanation of the rejection which provides the factual basis
necessary to support a conclusion that such a person would
have found the particular method steps recited in claim 1 to
be obvious for this or any other reason.
In this light, the examiner’s conclusion of obviousness
with respect to the subject matter recited in claim 1, and in
claims 2 through 6 which depend therefrom, is fundamentally
flawed.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C. § 103
6
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