Appeal No. 2000-0856 Page 4
Application No. 08/676,623
not sustain the examiner's rejection of claim 2 under 35
U.S.C.
§ 103. Our reasoning for this determination follows.
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).
Claim 2 recites a toilet seating system comprising, inter
alia, (1) a substantially circular adult seat having an
aperture centrally formed therein, (2) a substantially
circular child seat having an aperture formed therein which is
substantially smaller than the aperture centrally formed
within the adult seat and oriented more toward the forward
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