Appeal No. 1998-3416
Application 08/096,538
the claimed invention with those of the applied prior art when only one reference has been
applied as evidence of obviousness. We recognize that Litt does teach certain features of
a production scheduling and planning environment, and certain strategies and constraints,
but we are left to conjecture on our own whether the artisan would have arrived at the
subject matter of representative claim 1 on appeal from what is taught and/or suggested in
Litt itself. In order for us to sustain the examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103, we
would need to resort to speculation or unfounded assumptions to supply deficiencies in the
factual basis of the rejection. In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017, 154 USPQ 173, 178
(CCPA 1967), cert. denied,
389 U.S. 1057 (1968), reh’g denied, 390 U.S. 1000 (1968). This we decline to do.
Therefore, we must reverse the rejection of claims 1 through 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
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