Appeal No. 1999-2032 Page 5
Application No. 08/661,303
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 teachings of Ahlberg and Esmer are set forth on pages
3-5 of the answer and on pages 6-7 of the brief. The examiner
ascertained (answer, p. 4) that Ahlberg fails to "teach that
the memory for storing the data (vehicle speed) is a
nonvolatile memory." With regard to this difference, the
examiner determined (answer, pp. 4-5) that it would have been
obvious to one skilled in the art to have modified
the vehicle accessory of Ahlberg by incorporating the
nonvolatile memory of Esmer et al because such a
modification will provide a memory in which data stored
will be retained even in the event of a power failure and
will reduce the periodic writes in the memory, thereby
increasing the life of the memory.
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