Appeal No. 2002-1627
Application No. 09/132,450
disclosure and not from any teaching or suggestion in the reference
itself.
As noted above, the Examiner has the burden of initially
presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. The Examiner cannot
satisfy this burden by simply dismissing differences between the
claimed invention and the teachings of the prior art as being
obvious. The Examiner must present us with an evidentiary record
which supports the finding of obviousness. It does not matter how
strong the Examiner’s convictions are that the claimed invention
would have been obvious, or whether we might have an intuitive
belief that the claimed invention would have been obvious within
the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 103. Neither circumstance is a
substitute for evidence lacking in the record before us.
In view of the above discussion, since the Examiner has not
established a prima facie case of obviousness, the 35 U.S.C. § 103
rejection of independent claims 1 and 8, as well as claims 2-7 and
10-15 dependent thereon, based on Ichikawa is not sustained.
We next consider the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of
appealed claims 1-8 and 10-15 based on Yamakita. With respect to
independent claim 1, Appellant reiterates the argument, asserted
with respect to Ichikawa, that Yamakita has no disclosure of a
voice recognition system that converts spoken words into a
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