Appeal No. 1997-2247 Page 9
Application No. 08/259,798
has failed to establish a prima facie case of obviousness.
Therefore, we reverse the rejections of claims 1-4 as obvious
over Hardee and claims 5-9 and 12 as obvious over Hardee in
view of Kuo. Next, we address the rejection of claims 10 and
11.
Claims 10 and 11
We begin by finding that the references represent the
level of ordinary skill in the art. See In re GPAC Inc., 57
F.3d 1573, 1579, 35 USPQ2d 1116, 1121 (Fed. Cir. 1995)
(finding that the Board of Patent Appeals and Interference did
not err in concluding that the level of ordinary skill was
best determined by the references of record); In re Oelrich,
579 F.2d 86, 91, 198 USPQ 210, 214 (CCPA 1978) ("[T]he PTO
usually must evaluate ... the level of ordinary skill solely
on the cold words of the literature."). Of course, “‘[e]very
patent application and reference relies to some extent upon
knowledge of persons skilled in the art to complement that
[which is] disclosed ....’” In re Bode, 550 F.2d 656, 660,
193 USPQ 12, 16 (CCPA 1977) (quoting In re Wiggins, 488 F.2d
538, 543, 179 USPQ 421, 424 (CCPA 1973)). Those persons “must
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