Appeal No. 2000-1058 Page 4
Application No. 08/673,972
(Fed. Cir. 1984). Accordingly, we will not sustain the
examiner’s stated rejections.
We point out that in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103,
it is fundamental that all elements recited in a claim must be
considered and given effect in judging the patentability of
that claim against the prior art. See In re Geerdes, 491 F.2d
1260, 1262-63, 180 USPQ 789, 791 (CCPA 1974). Thus, a prima
facie case of obviousness is established by showing that some
objective teachings or suggestions in the applied prior art
taken as a whole and/or knowledge generally available to one
of ordinary skill in the art would have led that person to the
claimed invention, including each and every limitation of the
claims, without recourse to the teachings in appellants’
disclosure. See generally In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1447-
48, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1446-47 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (Nies, J.,
concurring). This showing can be established on similarity of
product or of process between the claimed invention and the
prior art.
In making our determination with respect to the propriety
of the examiner’s rejections of the subject matter on appeal
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