Appeal No. 2001-0380 Page 6
Application No. 08/676,971
opinion that the examiner failed to meet her burden2 of establishing a prima facie
case of obviousness.
Accordingly we reverse the rejection of claims 1, 2 and 5-9 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over Hofmann in view of Wergeland and Griffiths.
Claims 1, 3, 4 and 10-14:
The examiner relies on Hofmann, Wergeland and Griffiths as above in
addition to noting that Griffiths also teaches (Answer, page 6) “a cyclic medium
exchange method of culturing cells comprising the intermittent replacement of a
constant fraction of the culture with an equal volume of medium.” In addition, the
examiner finds that Gosselin (id.), “teach a method of culturing Tetrahymena by
a batch-fed culture system which results in a doubling of cell growth compared to
a simple batch culturing technique….”
Gosselin’s batch culture techniques, however, fail to make up for the
deficiencies, see supra, in the combination of Hofmann, Wergeland and Griffiths.
2 The initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness rests on the examiner. In re
Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
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