Appeal No. 1998-1964 Page 4
Application No. 08/518,784
obviousness. See In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28
USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993). A prima facie 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 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).
With this as background, we turn to the rejection of the
claims on appeal. The examiner determined for the reasons set
forth on page 2 of the final rejection that the subject matter
of claims 1 through 20 would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007