Appeal No. 2002-0225 Page 9
Application No. 08/332,275
meaning of that phrase as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art
taking into account the written description contained in the appellants' specification.6
For the reasons set forth above, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 19
to 21 and 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Desma-Werke is
reversed.
The obviousness rejections
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 23, 30, 31, 33 and 34 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103.
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner bears the initial burden
of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. See In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531,
1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993). A prima facie case of obviousness is
established by presenting evidence that would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to
combine the relevant teachings of the references to arrive at the claimed invention.
See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988) and In re
Lintner, 458 F.2d 1013, 1016, 173 USPQ 560, 562 (CCPA 1972).
6 See our discussion above with respect to the examiner's indefiniteness rejection.
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