Appeal No. 1999-1101
Application 08/727,125
Next, we determine whether Appellants' arguments
demonstrate insufficient evidence of prima facie obviousness.
See In re Rouffet, 149 F.3d 1350, 1355, 47 USPQ2d 1453, 1455
(Fed. Cir. 1998) ("On appeal to the Board, an applicant can
overcome a rejection by showing insufficient evidence of prima
facie obviousness or by rebutting the prima facie case with
evidence of secondary indicia of nonobviousness.").
Our discussion of the claims is limited to the arguments
in the brief. Under U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rules,
Appellants' brief is required to specify the particular
limitations in the rejected claims which are not described in
the prior art or rendered obvious over the prior art. See 37
CFR § 1.192(c)(8)(iv) (1997). Cf. In re Baxter Travenol
Labs., 952 F.2d 388, 391, 21 USPQ2d 1281, 1285 (Fed. Cir.
1991) ("It is not the function of this court to examine the
claims in greater detail than argued by an appellant, looking
for nonobvious distinctions over the prior art.");
In re Wiechert, 370 F.2d 927, 936, 152 USPQ 247, 254 (CCPA
1967) ("This court has uniformly followed the sound rule that
an issue raised below which is not argued in this court, even
if it has been properly brought here by a reason of appeal, is
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