Appeal No. 2000-1508 Page 19
Application No. 08/810,442
“In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. Section 103, the
examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie
case of obviousness.” In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28
USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993)(citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d
1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992)). "’A prima
facie case of obviousness is established when the teachings from
the prior art itself would appear to have suggested the claimed
subject matter to a person of ordinary skill in the art.’" In re
Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783, 26 USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993)
(quoting In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1051, 189 USPQ 143, 147
(CCPA 1976)).
Here, the decoder shown in Figure 7 of Gammie, on which the
examiner relies, features “a replaceable external security
element 714 which is mounted on the exterior of the decoder 706,
for example, as a plug-in module.” Col. 12, ll. 24-27.
“Although the replaceable security module has the advantages of
providing a guarantee that network security is recoverable
following a breach, it also has some disadvantages.” Col. 6,
ll. 54-57. One disadvantages is that a key signal is exposed
outside the program descrambler/routing manager 708 of Figure 7.
Specifically, “[t]he key signal which is generated by replaceable
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