Appeal No. 97-2552 Page 5
Application No. 08/541,658
Implicit in the above-noted rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103
is the examiner's determination (final rejection, pp. 3-4) that
Levy teaches or suggests all the claimed limitations of
independent claim 3 except for the claimed fluid light guide
means. The examiner then concluded that the claimed fluid light
guide means was suggested by the teachings of Thomas.
The conclusion that the claimed subject matter is 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).
Our review of Levy reveals that it fails to teach or suggest
all the remaining claimed limitations of independent claim 3
except for the claimed fluid light guide means. Accordingly,
even if the examiner's conclusion that the claimed fluid light
guide means was suggested by the teachings of Thomas is correct,
the combined teachings of the references would not have arrived
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