Appeal No. 97-3551
Application No. 08/342,759
OPINION
The Examiner’s Rejection
In rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103, 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)).
All of the claims before us require, inter alia, inner
and outer telescoping tubes and a spring disposed around the
inner tube, and all but claim 5 further include at least two
stops engaged by the spring. In formulating the rejection,
the examiner has combined the teachings of the two embodiments
disclosed in Very. This reference was discussed in the
appellant’s specification. It is directed to the same problem
as the appellant’s invention, and the manner in which it
solves the problem has much in common with the appellant’s
invention. In Very’s first embodiment (Figures 1 and 2), an
5
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