Appeal No. 95-4298
Application No. 07/886,263
The issue presented for review is whether the examiner
erred in rejecting claims 1, 3 through 9 and 11 through 20
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over the combined
disclosures of Pernicova, Katsuyama and Schnabel.
On consideration of the record, we reverse the examiner's
prior art rejection.
DISCUSSION
First, we conclude that the examiner has not established
a prima facie case of obviousness for the reasons succinctly
stated in appellants' Appeal Brief.
Second, assuming arguendo that the examiner had
established a prima facie case of obviousness, the objective
evidence of nonobviousness relied on by appellants and set
forth in Example 1 of the specification, pages 14 through 16,
is sufficient to rebut any such prima facie case.
Respecting the latter point, we remind the examiner that
if a prima facie case of obviousness is established, and if
the applicant comes forward with reasonable rebuttal supported
by experimental evidence, the entire merits of the matter are
to be reweighed. As stated in In re Hedges, 783 F.2d 1038,
1039,
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