Appeal No. 1998-3289
Application 08/362,167
respective viewpoints of appellants and the examiner, we make
the determination which follows.
This panel of the board is constrained to reverse the
obviousness rejection on appeal.
Sound evidence is required to establish a prima facie
case of obviousness. More specifically, appropriate evidence
is that which would have been suggestive of the presently
claimed invention to one having ordinary skill in an art,
without reliance upon appellants’ own teaching.
Setting aside in our minds appellants’ disclosed
invention, and assessing the examiner’s proffered prior art as
a whole, we at once perceive a lack of suggestion therein for
the defined ballpoint pen of claims 1 and 18, respectively.
1966). Additionally, this panel of the board has taken into
account not only the specific teachings, but also the
inferences which one skilled in the art would reasonably have
been expected to draw from the disclosure. See In re Preda
401 F.2d 825, 826, 159 USPQ 342, 344 (CCPA 1968).
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