Appeal No. 97-1439 Page 13
Application No. 08/417,981
Namur to make the modifications necessary to arrive at the
claimed invention. Thus, the examiner has failed to meet the
initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. 3
Thus, we cannot sustain the examiner's rejection of appealed
independent claim 1, or claims 2 through 4, 6, 7, and 11 through
13 which depend therefrom, under 35 U.S.C. § 103.4
Claims 8 through 10
Claim 8 recites a method of adjusting the height of a top
post that is inserted in a downward direction into a bottom post.
The method comprises, inter alia, the steps of (1) attaching a
keeper to the bottom post for defining an annular space having
gradually diminishing diameter in the downward direction,
(2) attaching a stop ring to the top post, (3) fitting the
attached stop ring into the annular space so that the keeper
prevents further downward movement of the top post relative to
3Note In re Rijckaert, supra; In re Lintner, supra; and In
re Fine, supra.
4We have also reviewed the additional references applied in
the rejection of claims 6 and 7 but find nothing therein which
makes up for the deficiency of Namur and Garringer discussed
above.
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