Appeal No. 1998-3402 Page 7
Application No. 08/190,929
The obviousness rejections
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 1 to 15, 18
and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Upon evaluation of all the evidence before us, it is our
conclusion that the evidence adduced by the examiner is
insufficient to establish a prima facie case of obviousness
with respect to the claims under appeal. 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).
Obviousness is tested by "what the combined teachings of
the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007