Appeal No. 1998-0187
Application No. 08/247,518
in the art would have been motivated to manufacture a
conventional ceramic cup with the typical handle by injection
molding in order to obtain the known advantages of an
injection molding process and would have had a reasonable
expectation of success in doing so based on the particular
suitability of injection molding for making objects having
difficult shapes and thin walls.
Having determined that the prior art itself reasonably
establishes a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to
the subject matter of claim 8, we will now consider the
evidence asserted to support the patentability of the claimed
invention. To this end, the appellant has offered evidence in
rebuttal to the prima facie case established by the examiner
in the form of four declarations, one from the inventor,
Stuart Z. Uram, two from Christopher Johnson, Group
Manufacturing and Technical Director of Josiah Wedgwood & Sons
Limited (hereinafter “Wedgwood”), and one from Malcolm G.
McLaren, Professor in the Ceramics Department and Director of
the Institute for Engineering Materials at Rutgers University
9
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