Appeal No. 2000-1991
Application No. 08/587,417
examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 5-10, 12-18 and 20-25 under
this ground of rejection.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103(a)
As a general proposition, in an appeal involving a rejection
under 35 U.S.C. § 103, an Examiner is under a burden to make out
a prima facie case of obviousness. If that burden is met, the
burden of going forward then shifts to the applicant to overcome
the prima facie case with argument and/or evidence. Obviousness,
is then determined on the basis of the evidence as a whole and
the relative persuasiveness of the arguments. See In re Oetiker,
977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992); In re
Hedges, 783 F.2d 1038, 1039, 228 USPQ 685, 686 (Fed. Cir. 1986);
In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir.
1984); and In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1052, 189 USPQ 143, 147
(CCPA 1976).
The appealed claims have been rejected by the examiner under
the following various combinations of the applied references.
Aoyama
Claims 1, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12 and 20-25 are rejected over Aoyama
Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007