Appeal No. 1998-0296
Application 08/431,312
Grounds of Rejection, Reply Brief, Examiner's Answer, and
Supplemental Examiner's Answer for the respective details
thereof.
OPINION
We will not sustain the rejections of claims 21, 23 and
24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over Kitamura.
The Examiner has failed to set forth a prima facie case.
It is the burden of the Examiner to establish why one having
ordinary skill in the art would have been led to the claimed
invention by the express teachings or suggestions found
in the prior art, or by implications contained in such
teachings or suggestions. In re Sernaker, 702 F.2d 989, 995,
217 USPQ 1, 6 (Fed. Cir. 1983). The Federal Circuit states
that “[t]he mere fact that the prior art may be modified in
the manner suggested by Examiner does not make the
modification obvious unless the prior art suggested the
desirability of the modification.” In re Fritch, 972 F.2d
Examiner noted that the Reply Brief filed July 17, 1997 was
entered and considered.
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