Appeal No. 98-0009
Application No. 08/538,414
Claims 1-6 also stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over LaBounty.
The rejections are explained in the Examiner's Answer.
The appellant’s arguments are set forth in the Brief.
OPINION
We have evaluated the rejection on the basis of the
following guidelines provided by our reviewing court: 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)). This is not to say, however,
that the claimed invention must expressly be suggested in any
one or all of the references, rather, the test for obviousness
is what the combined teachings of the references would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art (see Cable
Electric Products, Inc. v. Genmark, Inc., 770 F.2d 1015, 1025,
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