Appeal No. 95-5066
Serial No. 07/931,330
OPINION
The examiner has the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness. In re
Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Fine, 837 F.2d
1071, 1074-76, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598-1600 (Fed. Cir. 1988); In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468,
1471-72, 223 USPQ 785, 787-88 (Fed. Cir. 1984). In rejecting a claim under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the
examiner must provide a factual basis to support the obviousness conclusion. In re Freed, 425 F.2d
785, 788, 165 USPQ 570, 572 (CCPA 1970); In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1014-17, 154 USPQ
173, 176-78 (CCPA 1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1057 (1968). Based on the objective evidence of
record, the examiner is required to make the factual inquiries mandated by Graham v. John Deere
Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17, 148 USPQ 459, 469 (1966). The examiner is also required to explain why one
having ordinary skill in the art would have been led to modify
and/or combine the applied prior art to arrive at the claimed invention. To this end, the requisite
motivation must stem from some teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the
knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure.
Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1051, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1438 (Fed. Cir.
1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988); Ashland Oil, Inc. v. Delta Resins & Refractories, Inc.,
776 F.2d 281, 293, 227 USPQ 657, 664 (Fed. Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1017 (1986);
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