Appeal No. 1999-1480
Application No. 08/523,330
(see In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956
(Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24
USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (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 background, we turn to the examiner’s
rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
McRae in view of Taylor of independent claim 52 and claims 53-
56 dependent therefrom.
We agree with the appellant that all the limitations
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