Appeal No. 2000-0829
Application 09/079,054
should not be construed as an affirmative indication that the
applicants’ claims are patentable over prior art. We address
only the positions and rationale as set forth by the examiner and
on which the examiner’s rejection of the claims on appeal is
based.
Claims 1-8
The Examiner bears the burden of establishing a prima facie
case of obviousness based upon the prior art. The Examiner can
satisfy this burden only by showing some objective teaching in
the prior art or that knowledge generally available to one of
ordinary skill in the art would lead that individual to combine
the relevant teachings of the references. The patent applicant
may then attack the Examiner's prima facie determination as
improperly made, or the applicant may present objective evidence
tending to support a conclusion of nonobviousness. In re Fritch,
972 F.2d 1260, 1265, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783 (Fed. Cir. 1992)
(quoting In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598
(Fed. Cir. 1988).
Applicants argue that Taylor fails to teach or suggest
storing information representing a plurality of lighting devices
and lighting effects that can be produced by the lighting device
and using that information to produce a list of “options” for
controlling the selected light (Finding 20). In response, the
8
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