Appeal No. 96-2692
Application 08/310,892
disclosure. After a careful review of Appellants' disclosure,
we find that the method steps as recited in Appellants' claims
1, 7 and 15 are sufficient to provide the functions as recited
in Appellants' claimed whereby clause.
In regard to the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 7
and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103, The Examiner has failed to set
forth a prima facie case. It is the burden of the Examiner to
establish why one having ordinary skill in the art would have
been led to the claimed invention by the express teachings or
suggestions found in the prior art, or by implications con-
tained in such teachings or suggestions. In re Sernaker, 702
F.2d 989, 995, 217 USPQ 1, 6 (Fed. Cir. 1983).
Appellants argue in the brief and reply brief that
there would be no reason to combine the teaching of Allen, a
ring multiprocessor communication network with Childs, a
multi-stage broadcast network and Neches, a tree-connected
network. We agree. The Federal Circuit states that "[t]he
mere fact that the prior art may be modified in the manner
suggested by the Examiner does not make the modification
obvious unless the prior art suggested the desirability of the
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