Appeal No. 1999-0286 Page 10
Application No. 08/777,413
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 would
have led one of ordinary skill in the art 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) and In re Lintner, 458 F.2d 1013,
1016, 173 USPQ 560, 562 (CCPA 1972).
Rejections (1) and (2)
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 5, 6, 9 to 12
and 14 as being unpatentable over Holcomb in view of Wiese.
Likewise, we will not sustain the rejection of claim 13 as
being unpatentable over Holcomb in view of Wiese, as applied
to claim 5, and further in view of Lofstedt.
When it is necessary to select elements of various
teachings in order to form the claimed invention, we ascertain
whether there is any suggestion or motivation in the prior art
Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007