Appeal No. 97-1628
Application No. 08/442,610
Claims 39-56 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Broding in view of Vogel.
The rejection is explained in the Examiner's Answer.
The viewpoints of the appellants are set forth in the
Brief.
OPINION
The rejection has been made under 35 U.S.C. § 103, which
means that the examiner bears the initial burden of presenting
a prima facie case of obviousness (see In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d
1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993)), which is
established when the teachings of the prior art itself would
appear to have suggested the claimed subject matter to one of
ordinary skill in the art (see In re Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783,
26 USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993)).
The present invention is directed to the problem of
interrogating the interfaces between the various materials
present in a well borehole by the use of ultrasonic energies
to characterize the materials and the bonds formed between
them (specification, page 1). As explained by the appellants,
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