Appeal No. 96-2715
Application 08/359,673
burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. Note
In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed.
Cir. 1992).
The examiner’s rejection of claim 24 indicates that
Abe essentially teaches all the features recited in claim 24
except for the ratio of the container mouth width to the width
of the container wall upper portion. The examiner cites
Bourdier as teaching this relationship, and the examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to the artisan to
provide the container of Abe with the large-mouth opening of
Bourdier [answer, pages 3-4].
Appellants argue that the upper wall of Abe is not
curved, does not extend inwardly and upwardly from the upper
portion, and does not form a truncated dome as recited in
independent claim 24 [brief, page 3]. Appellants also argue
that Bourdier does not provide these missing teachings, and
that there would be no motivation to combine the Abe bottle
teachings with the Bourdier wide-mouth teachings [Id. at pages
3-4].
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