Appeal No.1997-0466
Application 08/154,158
3. Claims 16-22 and 61-70 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 over Pinnell and Longo in
view of Baert.
DECISION ON APPEAL
35 U.S.C. 103
Claims 2, 53-55 and 72 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 over Pinnell.
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
when the teachings from the prior art itself would appear to have suggested the claimed
subject matter to a person of ordinary skill in the art. In re Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783, 26
USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Furthermore, the conclusion that the claimed
subject matter is prima facie 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). With this as background, we analyze the prior art
applied by the examiner in the rejection of the claims on appeal.
It is the examiner’s position that Pinnell clearly discloses compositions comprising
collagenase and hyaluronidase. The examiner suggests that the claimed recitations of
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007