Appeal No. 98-1922 Page 8
Application No. 08/253,721
Claim 10
The decision of the examiner to reject claim 10 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is also affirmed since the appellants have
not challenged this rejection with any reasonable specificity,
thereby allowing claim 10 to fall with claim 16 (see In re
Nielson, 816 F.2d 1567, 1572, 2 USPQ2d 1525, 1528 (Fed. Cir.
1987).
The obviousness issues
We sustain the rejection of claims 2-6, 8, 9, 11 and 12
under 35 U.S.C. § 103, but not the rejection of claim 7.
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner
bears the initial burden of presenting a case of obviousness.
See In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956
(Fed. Cir. 1993). A case of obviousness is established by
presenting evidence that the reference teachings would appear
to be sufficient for one of ordinary skill in the relevant art
having the references 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
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