Appeal No. 97-2098
Application No. 08/401,514
g/g/hr.” Unquestionably, the appellant’s evidence of
nonobviousness is considerably more narrow in scope than the
argued claim on appeal.
It is well settled that evidence presented to rebut a
prima facie case of obviousness must be commensurate in scope
with the claims to which it pertains and that evidence which
is considerably more narrow in scope than the claimed subject
matter is not sufficient to rebut a prima facie case of
obviousness. In re Dill, 604 F.2d 1356, 1361, 202 USPQ 805,
808 (CCPA 1979). Thus, even assuming that the specification
examples evince unexpected results as urged by the appellant,
it is clear that such evidence, being considerably more narrow
than the argued claim on appeal, is not sufficient to rebut or
outweigh the examiner’s reference evidence of prima facie
obviousness. It follows that we will sustain the examiner’s
section 103 rejection of claims 1 through 10 and 12 through 16
as being unpatentable over Tsutsui.
The decision of the examiner is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in
connection with this appeal may be extended under
37 CFR § 1.136(a).
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