Appeal No. 1999-0055 Page 3
Application No. 08/703,545
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
The rejection is one of obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103. The test for
obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would have suggested to one
of ordinary skill in the art. See, for example, In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425,
208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie case of obviousness, it
is incumbent upon the examiner to provide a reason why one of ordinary skill in the art
would have been led to modify a prior art reference or to combine reference teachings to
arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972, 973 (Bd. Pat. App. &
Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some teaching, suggestion
or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge generally available to one of
ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure. See, for example, Uniroyal,
Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1439 (Fed. Cir.), cert.
denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
Claim 30 is the broadest claim, and we shall consider it first. This claim is directed
to a plug valve comprising a valve body having an internal chamber, a plug disposed in the
chamber and having a port therethrough for alignment with ports in the valve internal
chamber and being adapted to rotate between an open position and a closed position, an
adjustment mechanism for adjusting the plug vertically, and
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