Appeal No. 1998-1965 Page 5
Application No. 08/357,325
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner
bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of
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 necessary to arrive at the claimed invention.
See In re Lintner, 458 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 subject matter of
the independent claims under appeal.
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