Appeal No. 1997-2046 Page 6
Application No. 08/059,350
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. Section 103, the
examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a
prima facie case of obviousness. In re Oetiker, 977
F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir.
1992).... "A prima facie case of obviousness is
established when the teachings from the prior art
itself would appear to have suggested the claimed
subject matter to a person of ordinary skill in the
art." In re Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 782, 26 USPQ2d
1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (quoting In re Rinehart,
531 F.2d 1048, 1051, 189 USPQ 143, 147 (CCPA 1976)).
If the examiner fails to establish a prima facie
case, the rejection is improper and will be
overturned. In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5
USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
With these principles in mind, we address the examiner's
rejection of and the appellants' arguments about claims 40-55,
65-75, and 78-85; claim 56; and claims 57-62 and 76. We first
address claims 40-55, 65-75, and 78-85.
Claims 40-55, 63, 65-75, and 77-85
The examiner concludes, "[s]ince Takahashi et al have
stacked ferromagnetic sub-layers on each side of their
inductor coil it would have been obvious for the coil inductor
of Hasegawa et al to have plural layers or sub-lays for layers
2a and 2b in Figs. lA and 1B as taught by Takahashi et al."
(Examiner's Answer at 3.) The appellants argue, "the
Takahashi et al. patent (1) does not disclose a plurality of
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007