Appeal No. 2001-0730 Page 4
Application No. 09/221,543
examiner's rejection of claims 5 to 7 and 12 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).
A critical step in analyzing the patentability of claims
pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 103 is casting the mind back to the
time of invention, to consider the thinking of one of ordinary
skill in the art, guided only by the prior art references and
the then-accepted wisdom in the field. See In re Dembiczak,
175 F.3d 994, 999, 50 USPQ2d 1614, 1617 (Fed. Cir. 1999).
Close adherence to this methodology is especially important in
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