Appeal No. 1999-2439 Page 4
Application No. 08/731,857
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).
In the rejection before us in this appeal, the examiner
determined (final rejection, p. 2) that it would have been
obvious in view of the teachings of Cromwell to have replaced
Van Hoose's female member 94 with a male square drive member,
thus the modified Van Hoose's adapter 10 would have a square
drive at each end thereof. We do not agree.
In our view, the only suggestion for modifying Van Hoose
in the manner proposed by the examiner stems from hindsight
knowledge derived from the appellant's own disclosure. The
use of such hindsight knowledge to support an obviousness
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is, of course, impermissible.
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