Appeal No. 98-1292
Application No. 08/570,835
Claims 6, 7, 9, 11, 13-15, 17, 19 and 20 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gulden in
view of Carne, Meinel, Effner and Kitagawa.
The rejection is explained in the Examiner's Answer.
The opposing viewpoints of the appellant are set forth in
the Brief.
OPINION
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings
of the prior art would have suggested to one of ordinary skill
in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ
871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103, it is incumbent upon the
examiner to provide a reason why one of ordinary skill in the
art would have been led to modify a prior art reference or to
combine reference teachings to arrive at the claimed
invention. See Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972, 973 (Bd. Pat.
App. & Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite motivation must
stem from some teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior
art as a whole or from the knowledge generally available to
one of ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellant's
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