Appeal No. 1998-3336 Page 5
Application No. 08/527,788
We begin by noting the following principles from In re
Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir.
1993).
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the
examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a
prima facie case of obviousness. In re Oetiker, 977
F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir.
1992).... "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, 782, 26 USPQ2d
1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (quoting In re Rinehart,
531 F.2d 1048, 1051, 189 USPQ 143, 147 (CCPA 1976)).
With these principles in mind, we consider the examiner's
rejection and the appellant's argument.
The examiner asserts, "Bartley et al. discloses an
apparatus used for measuring and controlling the flow rate of
a liquid in a piping system. Bartley discloses use of an
alarm actuated indicating an unacceptable level of pump
impeller performance. The flow rate of the liquid is
calculated using pump pressure rise. The difference would
tend to increase with the degree of degradation in the
impeller performance (col. 12 lines 8-21 and col. 15 lines 49-
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