Appeal No. 1996-1244 Page 4
Application No. 08/082,782
We have carefully reviewed the respective positions
presented by appellant and the examiner. In so doing, we find
ourselves in agreement with appellant's position in almost
every regard and hence reach the determination that the
examiner has not met the initial burden of establishing a
prima facie case of obviousness of the claimed subject matter.
Accordingly, we will not sustain the examiner's rejections for
essentially those reasons advanced by appellant , and we add 2
the following primarily for emphasis.
The examiner, having correctly determined that the
appealed claims are drawn to an apparatus, inexplicably fails
to provide a colorably rationale explanation as to how Mintz
alone or together with Nakamura would have suggested the3
claimed apparatus including, inter alia, a plurality of
containers of supports of the foils and a removal or support
discharge station as clearly called for by all of the appealed
2Since we find that the examiner has not established a
prima facie case of obviousness, we do not reach the issue of
the sufficiency of the rebuttal evidence furnished in the
declaration of Armando Baesse. In re Geiger, 815 F.2d 686,
688, 2 USPQ2d 1276, 1278 (Fed. Cir. 1987).
3The combination of Nakamura and Mintz is only applicable
to the examiner's rejection of claims 9 and 21.
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