Appeal No. 1998-1716 Page 5
Application No. 08/526,942
in the relevant art having the references before him to make
the proposed combination or other modification. See In re
Lintner, 458 F.2d 1013, 1016, 173 USPQ 560, 562 (CCPA 1972).
Furthermore, the conclusion that the claimed subject matter is
prima facie obvious must be supported by evidence, as shown by
some objective teaching in the prior art or by knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art that
would have led that individual to combine the relevant
teachings of the references to arrive at the claimed
invention. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d
1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988). Rejections based on
§ 103 must rest on a factual basis with these facts being
interpreted without hindsight reconstruction of the invention
from the prior art. The examiner may not, because of doubt
that the invention is patentable, resort to speculation,
unfounded assumption or hindsight reconstruction to supply
deficiencies in the factual basis for the rejection. See In
re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017, 154 USPQ 173, 178 (CCPA 1967),
cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1057 (1968). Our reviewing court has
repeatedly cautioned against employing hindsight by using the
appellant's disclosure as a blueprint to reconstruct the
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