Appeal No. 97-0801
Application 08/168,087
view of the general teachings of Shen. Thus, the examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case of
the obviousness of these claims. Therefore, we do not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 2-4
based on Shen taken alone.
Independent claim 6 and dependent claims 7 and 8 stand rejected based on the teachings of
Shen and Normille. Claim 6 has limitations similar to the limitations recited in independent claim 1. As
noted above, Shen does not teach these limitations. The Normille teachings were added to Shen to
meet limitations of claims 6-8 which are unrelated to these recitations of claims 1 and 6. Since Normille
does not overcome the deficiencies of Shen discussed above, the collective teachings of Shen and
Normille also do not suggest the invention as recited in claims 6-8. Therefore, we do not sustain the
examiner’s rejection of claims 6-8 based on Shen and Normille.
In summary, we have not sustained any of the examiner’s rejections of the claims based on
Shen alone or Shen and Normille. While we cannot say if there is prior art available which would
render the claimed invention unpatentable, we can say that the examiner’s reliance on
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