Appeal No. 96-2247 Page 6
Application No. 08/218,488
obvious must be supported by evidence, as shown by some objective
teaching in the prior art or by knowledge generally available to
one of ordinary skill in the art that would have led that
individual to combine the relevant teachings of the references to
arrive at the claimed invention. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071,
1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988). Rejections based on
§ 103 must rest on a factual basis with these facts being
interpreted without hindsight reconstruction of the invention
from the prior art. The examiner may not, because of doubt that
the invention is patentable, resort to speculation, unfounded
assumption or hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in
the factual basis for the rejection. See In re Warner, 379 F.2d
1011, 1017, 154 USPQ 173, 177 (CCPA 1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S.
1057 (1968).
With this as background, we turn to the examiner's rejection
of claim 1.
Claim 1 recites a marine spar platform comprising an
essentially vertical cylindrical buoyant vessel and a shroud
surrounding the essentially vertical cylindrical buoyant vessel.
Claim 1 further recites that the shroud comprises two essentially
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