Appeal No. 2002-0797
Application No. 08/900,977
intake manifold of the vehicle’s engine. A copy of the appealed
claims appears in the appendix to the brief.1
The references relied upon by the examiner in the final
rejection are:
Cook (Cook ‘785) 5,115,785 May 26, 1992
Cook et al. (Cook ‘082) 5,413,082 May 9, 1995
Claims 1-5, 7-22 and 24-35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Cook ‘785 in view of Cook
‘082.
Reference is made to appellants’ brief (Paper No. 20) and to
the final rejection2 and answer (Paper Nos. 14 and 21) for the
respective positions of appellants and the examiner regarding the
merits of this rejection.
Discussion
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner
bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of
obviousness. In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532. 28 USPQ2d 1955,
1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993) and In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445,
1The appendix to the brief also includes claims 6 and
23 which, as noted above, have been withdrawn from consideration.
2The examiner has expressly incorporated the grounds for
rejection as set forth in the final rejection into the answer.
See page 3 of the answer.
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007