Appeal No. 1998-1002
Application No. 08/390,175
“[T]he examiner bears the initial burden, on review of
the prior art or on any other ground, of presenting a prima
facie case of unpatentability,” whether on the grounds of
anticipation or obviousness. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443,
1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992). On the record
before us, the examiner relies upon a combination of four
references to reject the claimed subject matter and establish
a prima facie case of obviousness. The basic premise of the
rejection is that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art, “to use rubber particles and a
rubber matrix in the flooring of Sachs in view of Charlton et
al. further in view of Gembinski et al in order to produce a
decorative elastomeric flooring because of the teachings of
Heckel et al. ‘868.” See Answer, page 6. We disagree.
Although Sachs discloses a non-skid floor tile having
thermoplastic material embedded in the vinyl tile, column 1,
lines 31-35, we find no suggestion for the utilization of
either rubbery material or of the thickness of the material as
required by the claimed subject matter.
Furthermore, the disclosure of Gembinski is not even
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007