Appeal No. 1998-3312
Application No. 08/354,803
under 35 U.S.C. § 103. 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); In re
Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1446, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir.
1992)), which is established when the teachings of the prior
art itself would appear to have suggested the claimed subject
matter to one of ordinary skill in the art (see In re Bell,
991 F.2d 781, 783,
26 USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993)). 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).
With this as our background, we look to the examiner’s
rejection of claims 1-8, 11, 17, 18, 25-29 and 32 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Holloway in view of
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