Appeal No. 96-1659
Application 08/166,931
the battery recitations in independent claim 35. Although we
cannot say whether there is better prior art than the prior
art applied by the examiner, we can say that the applied prior
art in combination with the examiner’s analysis fails to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness against claim 35.
Therefore, we cannot sustain the rejection of claim 35 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as proposed by the examiner. Since claims 36-
41, 44-46 and 49 depend from claim 35, we also do not sustain
the rejection of these claims.
With respect to independent claim 50, the examiner
essentially cites Ferguson and Watkins for the same reasons
discussed above with respect to claim 35. With respect to the
claimed voltage conditioning sub-system, the examiner observes
that “[t]he recited voltage conditioner means reads on Watkins
PWM, col. 6, lines 1-65" [answer, page 6]. Appellant’s brief
has absolutely no arguments specifically directed to the
nonobviousness of claim 50.
Although we concluded that the examiner had failed to
make a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to claim
35, independent claim 50 has no recitations regarding a master
smoke alarm and slave smoke alarms and no recitation regarding
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