Appeal No. 1998-2838 Page 5
Application No. 08/591,801
not sustain the examiner's rejection of claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 10-
14 and 17-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Our reasoning for this
determination follows.
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 that the applied prior art does not
establish a prima facie case of obviousness. Specifically,
the appellants assert that the claimed control means as
recited in the independent claims on appeal (i.e., claims 1
and 13) is not suggested by the applied prior art. We agree.
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