Appeal No. 97-0398
Application 08/281,732
We reverse the outstanding rejection of claims 1 through
3, 5, 6, 10 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
From our consideration of the examiner's statement of the
rejection in the final rejection and the examiner's remarks in
the answer, we conclude that the examiner has not set forth a
prima facie case of obviousness of the threshold question of
the subject matter presented in independent claim 1 on appeal.
The focus of the dispute between the appellants and the
examiner is the claimed output stage set forth at the end of
independent claim 1 on appeal. In the brief and the
declaration from one of the inventors, it is asserted that the
specific embodiment discussed in DiGiovanni does not teach the
second stage of claim 1 on appeal. The examiner apparently
agrees with the brief and the declaration that the teachings
in DiGiovanni as to the second stage in that reference
indicate a structure opposite in characteristics to that which
are set forth in the claimed second stage of claim 1 on
appeal.
The top of page 3 of the examiner's answer states:
[T]he Boards' attention is drawn to the Abstract and
column 3, line 49 through column 4, line 3 of
3
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