Appeal No. 1999-1483 Page 4
Application No. 08/732,887
along radial axes positioned 120 degrees from one another” (Answer, page 5) because
Burrows’ Figure 1 “depicts the angles between the step assembly foot and the two leg
assembly feet as being nearly equally spaced which would correlate to the angles between
. . . being 120 degrees” (Answer, page 10).
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See, for example, In re Keller, 642 F.2d
413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness, it is incumbent upon the examiner to provide a reason why one of ordinary
skill in the art would have been led to modify a prior art reference or to combine reference
teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972, 973
(Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some
teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure.
See, for example, Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d
1434, 1052 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
The examiner appears to have focused on the angular relationship between the feet
of the step assembly and the leg assemblies of the Burrows ladder when the ladder is in its
erected position. It is true that, as shown in Figure 1, the points at which the three units
touch the ground appear to be equidistant from one another. However, this does not
satisfy the terms of claim 1, which recites the invention not in terms of the relationship
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