Appeal No. 1997-0635 Page 7
Application No. 08/375,183
prior art, the applied prior art would not have taught or
suggested a gang form having a plurality of form liners as
recited in claim 4 mounted to a backing member.1
In our view, the only suggestion for modifying the
applied prior art in the manner proposed by the examiner to
meet all the limitations of claim 4 stems from hindsight
knowledge derived from the appellants' own disclosure. The
use of such hindsight knowledge to support an obviousness
rejection under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 is, of course, impermissible. See, for example, W. L.
Gore and Associates, Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540,
1553, 220 USPQ 303, 312-13 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469
U.S. 851 (1984).
Thus, upon evaluation of all the evidence before us, it
is our conclusion that the evidence adduced by the examiner is
insufficient to establish a prima facie case of obviousness
1We have also reviewed the references additionally
applied in the rejection of dependent claims 5 to 8 and 11 but
find nothing therein which would have suggested the subject
matter of claim 4.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007