Appeal No. 2000-0229
Application No. 08/603,005 Page 5
Hosp., 732 F.2d 1572, 1577, 221 USPQ 929, 933 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
These showings by the examiner are an essential part of complying
with the burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness.
Note In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444
(Fed. Cir. 1992). If that burden is met, the burden 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. See id.; 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 examiner's position (answer, pages 3-4) is that “Ahlm
differs from appellant’s invention in that it only indicates if a
bar code is preset or absent on the label rather than indicating
whether a read bar code is in the proper location.” To overcome
this deficiency in Ahlm, the examiner turns to Poland for a
teaching of an electronic price label system which searches a
product location table for the label information read from the
tag to verify or ensure that the tag is in the proper location.
Appellant asserts (reply brief, page 1) that "appellant's
brief raised as the central issue for review the lack of
suggestion to combine the relied upon references." Appellant
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