Appeal No. 1995-5117
Application No. 08/067,154
12) as well as the corresponding property values recited by
independent claims 10 and 15.
It is well settled that evidence presented to rebut a
prima facie case of obviousness must be commensurate in scope
with the claims to which it pertains and that evidence offered
by way of a declaration which is considerably more narrow in
scope than claimed subject matter is not sufficient to rebut a
prima facie case of obviousness. In re Dill, 604 F.2d 1356,
1361, 202 USPQ 805, 808 (CCPA 1979). As explained above, the
Rieger declaration evidence of record is considerably more
narrow than the independent claims under consideration.
Therefore, it is our conclusion that the evidence before us,
on balance, weighs most heavily in favor of an obviousness
conclusion with respect to the claimed subject matter under
consideration.
We will sustain, therefore, the examiner’s section 103
rejection based on Weber of claims 2, 3, 10, 13 through 16 and
18 through 20.
The decision of the examiner is affirmed.
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