Appeal No. 1997-1461
Application 08/388,915
the examiner relies upon Chadwick for step A, Burgie for step
C, and Ritzer and Kotval for step B. The examiner alleges
that Ritzer shows “washing” at column 2, lines 33-42, when
Ritzer contacts Si with copious amounts of solvent, that is,
when the pellets are contacted with an aqueous binder solution
and that Kotval shows “washing when he contacts silicon with
silicon tetrachloride” (column 2, lines 40-45). The examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made to “wash”
the high boiling component of Chadwick as taught by Ritzer and
by Kotval and then to spray dry as taught by Burgie.
In our view, the examiner has not sustained his burden to
establish that the claims would have been obvious at the time
the invention was made from the combined teachings of the
cited prior art.
The statutory standard of § 103 for determining
obviousness of an invention is whether in view of the prior
art the invention as a whole would have been obvious at the
time it was made. Oetiker, 977 F.2d at 1444, 24 USPQ2d at
1444. Obviousness cannot be established by combining the
teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention,
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