Appeal No. 1999-1975 Page 5
Application No. 08/963,460
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).
The examiner's rejection of claim 1 is founded on his
determination (answer, p. 4) that Yeremenko's vehicle, shown
in Figure 5, is "capable of traveling consistent with the
claimed functional language." Based on this determination,
the examiner appears to have ascertained that the only
difference between Yeremenko and claim 1 relates to the
recited ball bearing-mounting plate. With regard to this
difference, the examiner determined (answer, p. 4) that
[i]t would have been obvious to have used such a ball
bearing retaining mounting plate [Emmert's ball bearing
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