Appeal No. 95-3453
Application No. 08/125,709
Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner bears the initial
burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. In re
Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir.
1993); In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443,
1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992). Only if that burden is met does the
burden of coming forward with evidence or argument shift to
appellants to demonstrate unobviousness. Id. If the examiner
fails to establish a prima facie case, the examiner's
rejection based on obviousness is improper and will be
overturned. In re Fine,
837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
In the present case, the examiner has failed to convince
us that appellants' claimed method would have been prima facie
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art from the teachings
of the Kochendorfer reference. As appellants point out in
their Brief (page 3), Kochendorfer does not describe the
claimed plurality of conductors (plural wires for a plurality
of silos in the plug-in connectors), electrical plug-in
connectors and locations of the plug-in connectors. The
examiner has not proffered any evidence, much less
explanation, why one of ordinary skill in the art would have
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