Appeal No. 1997-1358
Application 07/874,651
Schnittker’s Figure 3 does not teach or suggest the
recitations of claim 24.
Therefore, the examiner has failed to establish a prima facie
case of the obviousness of independent claim 24. Accordingly,
we do not sustain the rejection of claim 24 or of claims 25-32
and 39 which depend therefrom.
With respect to independent claim 33, appellants argue
that no ring of any kind is shown in the applied references
and there is especially no teaching of a split ring armor stop
member as recited in claim 33 [brief, page 17]. The examiner
has not addressed this argument other than to dismiss the
split ring stop member as an obvious design choice. As we
noted above, the examiner cannot substitute the bald
observation of design choice for evidence specifically lacking
in the record. Thus, the examiner has failed to provide a
prima facie case of the obviousness of independent claim 33.
Therefore, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 33 or of
claims 34-38 which depend therefrom.
In summary, we have sustained the examiner’s rejection
with respect to claims 20-23, but we have not sustained the
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