Appeal No. 96-4005
Application 08/183,531
(CCPA 1976). Only those arguments actually made by Appellant have been considered in this
decision. Arguments which Appellant could have made but chose not to make in the Brief have not
been considered [see 37 CFR § 1.192(a)].
With respect to independent claim 1, the Examiner has pointed out the teachings of Feuerstein
and the admitted prior art, has pointed out the perceived differences between this prior art and the
claimed invention, and has reasonably indicated how and why Feuerstein and the admitted prior art
would have been modified and/or combined to arrive at the claimed invention. In our view, the
Examiner’s analysis is sufficiently reasonable that we find that the Examiner has satisfied the burden of
presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. That is, the Examiner’s analysis, if left unrebutted, would
be sufficient to support a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103. The burden is, therefore, upon Appellant to
come forward with evidence or arguments which persuasively rebut the Examiner’s prima facie case of
obviousness. Appellant has presented several substantive arguments in response to the Examiner’s
rejection. Therefore, we consider obviousness based upon the totality of the evidence and the relative
persuasiveness of the arguments.
We note at the outset that Appellant has not contested the Examiner's position concerning the
obviousness of transforming sample regions into a terrain profile. Rather, Appellant's arguments in the
brief center on an alleged deficiency in Feuerstein in disclosing the decreasing of the size of the sample
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007