Appeal No. 2000-1482 Page 4
Application No. 08/995,706
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). Rejections based on 35 U.S.C. § 103 must rest on a
factual basis with these facts being interpreted without
hindsight reconstruction of the invention from the prior art.
The examiner may not, because of doubt that the invention is
patentable, resort to speculation, unfounded assumption or
hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in the factual
basis for the rejection. See In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011,
1017, 154 USPQ 173, 178 (CCPA 1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S.
1057 (1968).
With this as background, we analyze the prior art applied
by the examiner in the rejection of the claims on appeal.
H-Square Publication discloses twelve models of
horizontal wafer transfer machines. Each horizontal wafer
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