Appeal No. 97-4158
Application No. 08/515,218
Claims 41 through 60 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being unpatentable over Bruder in view of Bright, Kishi,
Jarvela and Scheingold.
The rejection is explained in the Examiner's Answer.
The opposing viewpoints of the appellant are set forth in
the Appeal Brief.
OPINION
This rejection is under 35 U.S.C. § 103, and therefore
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)). It is our view that
the examiner has not met this burden, and therefore we will
not sustain the rejection. Our reasons for arriving at this
conclusion follow.
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