Appeal No. 96-3085
Application 08/274,655
776 F.2d 281, 293, 227 USPQ 657, 664 (Fed. Cir. 1985), cert.
denied, 475 U.S. 1017 (1986); ACS Hosp. Sys., Inc. v.
Montefiore Hosp., 732 F.2d 1572, 1577, 221 USPQ 929, 933 (Fed.
Cir. 1984). These showings by the examiner are an essential
part of complying with the burden of presenting a prima facie
case of obviousness. Note In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445,
24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
As indicated by the cases just cited, the Examiner has at
least two responsibilities in setting forth a rejection under
35 U.S.C. § 103. First, the Examiner must identify all the
differences between the claimed invention and the teachings of
the prior art. Second, the Examiner must explain why the
identified differences would have been the result of an
obvious modification of the prior art.
In our view, the Examiner has addressed his first
responsibility, but has not met his second responsibility.
We agree with Appellant that Peet, the sole reference
used in rejecting this claim, does not meet the limitations
called for in claim 1. Peet relates to a multiple-processors
system where the same stream of instructions is being executed
by three identical CPU's [column 2, line 30 to column 3, line
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