Appeal No. 2000-2217 Page 5
Application No. 09/067,287
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 14, the sole independent claim on appeal, reads as
follows:
An apparatus for inflating an inflatable vehicle
occupant protection device, said apparatus comprising:
a container for containing a quantity of inflation
fluid;
a burst disk blocking flow of fluid out of said
container; and
an actuatable initiator for rupturing said burst
disk to enable flow of fluid out of said container, said
initiator comprising:
a body of ignitable material for, when ignited,
generating combustion products;
electrically energizable means for igniting said
body of ignitable material, said electrically
energizable means located in said body of ignitable
material;
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