Appeal No. 2000-2035 Page 4
Application No. 08/844,282
insufficient to establish a prima facie case of obviousness
with respect to the claims under appeal. Accordingly, we will
not sustain the examiner's rejection of claims 2, 6-8, 10, 11,
17 and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Our reasoning for this
determination follows.
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner
bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of
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).
Claim 17, the sole independent claim on appeal, reads as
follows:
An easy-open beverage container in the form of a
flexible pouch in which a beverage therein is consumed
through a straw comprising:
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