Appeal No. 98-1449 Page 4
Application No. 08/297,122
before him to make the proposed combination or other
modification. See In re Lintner, 9 F.2d 1013, 1016, 173 USPQ
560, 562 (CCPA 1972). Furthermore, the conclusion that the
claimed subject matter is prima facie obvious must be
supported by evidence, as shown by some objective teaching in
the prior art or by knowledge generally available to one of
ordinary skill in the art that would have led that individual
to combine the relevant teachings of the references to arrive
at the claimed invention. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071,
1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988). The examiner may
not, because of doubt that the invention is patentable, resort
to speculation, unfounded assumption or hindsight
reconstruction to supply deficiencies in the factual basis for
the rejection. See In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017, 154
USPQ 173, 177 (CCPA 1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1057 (1968).
With this as background, we turn to the examiner's
rejection of claims 6 and 7. The examiner found (answer, p.
3) that Shaub teaches all the claimed subject matter except
that Shaub's ceiling board 30 does not include "depressed
areas in the support edge means at the corners of the board."
The examiner then stated (answer, pp. 3-4) that
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