Appeal No. 1998-2512 Page 5
Application No. 08/618,593
208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie
case of obviousness, it is incumbent upon the examiner to
provide a reason why one of ordinary skill in the art would
have been led to modify a prior art reference or to combine
reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex
parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972, 973 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985). To
this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some
teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole
or from the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary
skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure. See,
for example, Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837 F.2d
1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1439 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 488
U.S. 825 (1988).
The appellants’ spring motor system is particularly
suitable for use in conjunction with assisting the elevating
and lowering of Venetian blind type window coverings. For
reasons explained in the specification, the appellants’
invention has a number of advantages in such a use. As
manifested in independent claim 1, the invention comprises,
inter alia, storage drum means having a first axis, an output
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