Appeal No. 2000-1712
Application No. 08/624,091
the available spacing is on the order of 16 to 22 mm and can
be unwound and wound up tidily and accurately without sticking
to the glass (specification, p. 2, lines 9-18; p. 3, lines 3-
14; p. 6, lines 12-17).
Rejections based on 35 U.S.C. § 103 must rest on a
factual basis. In making such a rejection, the examiner has
the initial duty of supplying the requisite factual basis and
may not, because of doubts that the invention is patentable,
resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or hindsight
reconstruction to supply deficiencies in the factual basis.
In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017, 154 USPQ 173, 178 (CCPA
1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1057 (1968).
The examiner asserts that the specific thickness of the
blind and spacing of the pleats (creases) would have been
obvious based on the particular application to the Trippner
structure and environment but has not provided any evidence or
rationale to support that assertion. In particular, we note
that Trippner does not specify the diameter of the winding
roll, the spacing between the panes of glass, or the length
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