Appeal No. 1996-0485 Page 6
Application No. 08/139,456
the appellant and examiner. After considering the record
before us, we cannot say that the evidence and level of skill
in the art would have suggested the invention of claims 1-25.
Accordingly, we reverse.
We begin our consideration of the obviousness of the
claims by recalling that in rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. §
103, the patent examiner bears the initial burden of
establishing a prima facie case of obviousness. A prima facie
case is established when the teachings from the prior art
itself would appear to have suggested the claimed subject
matter to a person of ordinary skill in the art. If the
examiner fails to establish a prima facie case, an obviousness
rejection is improper and will be overturned. In re
Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir.
1993). With this in mind, we consider the obviousness of
claims 1-21 and 22-25 seriatim.
Obviousness of Claims 1-21
In rejecting claims 1-21, the examiner has made the
following assertion: “One way to reduce banding effect is to
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