Appeal No. 1998-0187
Application No. 08/247,518
construction formed of ceramic and a binder thereof. We are
informed by the appellant’s specification that “[c]ups made of
ceramic materials (such as bone china or earthenware) have
been made without handles by a variety of different
procedures, including injection molding” and that “the prior
art teaches the manufacture of ceramic cups by the separate
manufacture of the body and the handle, and then the joining
of the handle to the body in a cementing operating.” See
specification, p. 1. According to the appellant, it was also
known in the art prior to his invention to make ceramic cups
having a body and a handle as an integral, one-piece unitary
construction by an isostatic compression molding technique.
See id. at pp. 1 and 2 and
U.S. Patent No. 4,713,204 to Jung, of record.
Claims 8 through 10, 12 through 14, 39 and 40 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103. The guidance provided by our
reviewing court in evaluating the issue of obviousness of the
invention in view of the teachings of the applied prior art is
as follows: The initial burden of establishing a basis for
denying patentability to a claimed invention rests upon the
examiner. See In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1472, 223 USPQ
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