Appeal No. 2002-1524 Page 7
Application No. 09/423,526
F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness, it is incumbent upon the examiner to provide a reason why one of
ordinary skill in the art would have been led to modify a prior art reference or to
combine reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp,
227 USPQ 972, 973 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite motivation
must stem from some teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole or
from the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art and not from
the appellant's disclosure. See, for example, Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837
F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1439 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
Claims 13, 15-17 and 19 stand rejected as being unpatentable over Sparks.
Although the appellants grouped these claims together on page 5 of the Brief,
arguments directed to the patentability of claims 13 and 14 nevertheless were set forth
on pages 7 and 8, and we therefore shall consider these claims separately.
Claim 13 adds to claim 12 the limitation that the armature has a flat surface
whose plane is oriented obliquely relative to a plane of the sealing seat and the closing
body, and the leaf spring is fastened to this oblique surface. This clearly is not
disclosed or taught by Sparks, and therefore the evidence adduced by the examiner
falls short of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness with regard to claim 13.
Such being the case, the rejection of claim 13, as well as that of claims 15, 17 and 19,
which depend from claim 13, is not sustained.
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