Appeal No. 1999-1899 Page 11
Application No. 08/932,090
--The 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection over Oldham and Ruemelin--
We shall not sustain this rejection.
The examiner states that Oldham is "silent as to an
outlet through which particulate material may be discharged
and at least one secondary inlet" (answer, page 5). In the
examiner's opinion it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to, in
effect, substitute inlet structure from Ruemelin's apparatus
into Oldham to yield an apparatus as claimed by appellant's
claim 1 (answer, page 6).
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. ' 103, the examiner
bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of
obviousness. See In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28
USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993). A prima facie case of
obviousness is established when the teachings of the prior art
itself would appear to have suggested the claimed subject
matter to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Bell,
991 F.2d 781, 783, 26 USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993). If
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