Appeal No. 1998-2294 Page 4 Application No. 08/546,298 In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. See In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993). A prima facie case of obviousness is established by presenting evidence that would have led one of ordinary skill in the art 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) and In re Lintner, 458 F.2d 1013, 1016, 173 USPQ 560, 562 (CCPA 1972). The appellants argue (brief, pp. 4-9) that the applied prior art does not suggest the claimed subject matter. We agree. All the claims under appeal require the claimed removable cap to include a contact means or contact assembly having (1) a planar base member for attaching the contact means to the 1 1In claim 22, line 6, "said contact means" should be amended to --said contact assembly-- for proper antecedent basis.Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007