Appeal No. 2000-1941
Application 08/567,128
recitations of the claims and focused instead on broader concepts
and on the “fact” that the claims recite well known electrical
elements. When we attempt to read any of the independent claims
on any one of the applied prior art references, we quickly find
that there are many differences between the claimed invention and
the prior art which the examiner has completely ignored. Thus,
the rejections fail because they do not address all the
differences between the claimed invention and the applied prior
art.
The rejections also fail because the examiner has simply
dismissed all acknowledged differences between the claimed
invention and the prior art as resulting from obvious design
expedients without any evidence on this record to support that
assertion. The examiner cannot fulfill his responsibility of
establishing a prima facie case of obviousness by simply
concluding that such differences are obvious.
Since the rejections which also rely on Chigodo in
addition to Nelson or Ertel still rely on the deficiencies of
Nelson or Ertel as discussed above, and since Chigodo does not
overcome these deficiencies, we will not sustain the rejection of
any of the dependent claims based on Nelson or Ertel in view of
Chigodo.
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