Appeal No. 99-0717 Page 10
Application No. 08/597,095
Obviousness of Claims 2-10
Regarding claims 2-10, the appellants assert that there
is “nothing which teaches, suggests, or implies Applicants’
‘external training processor’ ....” (Appeal Br. at 11.) In
rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the patent examiner
bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness. A prima facie case is established when the
teachings from the prior art itself would appear to have
suggested the claimed subject matter to a person of ordinary
skill in the art. If the examiner fails to establish a prima
facie case, an obviousness rejection is improper and will be
overturned. In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d
1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Here, the examiner fails to identify any teaching or
suggestion of an external training processor in the prior art.
In fact, the examiner does not even mention the term “external
training processor” in his rejection. Although Ishii teaches
Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007