Appeal No. 2002-2194 Page 4
Application No. 09/594,532
all the evidence before us, it is our conclusion that the evidence adduced by the
examiner is insufficient to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to
the claims under appeal. Accordingly, we will not sustain the examiner's rejection of
claims 1 to 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Our reasoning for this determination follows.
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner bears the initial burden
of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. See In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531,
1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993). A prima facie case of obviousness is
established by presenting evidence that would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to
combine the relevant teachings of the references to arrive at the claimed invention.
See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988) and In re
Lintner, 458 F.2d 1013, 1016, 173 USPQ 560, 562 (CCPA 1972).
All the claims under appeal recite a towed array system comprising, inter alia, a
plurality of tow bodies having positive buoyancy. In all the rejections before us in this
appeal the examiner ascertained that the towed vehicle system of Spink lacked both
positive buoyancy and a plurality of tow bodies. The examiner then concluded that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to
have modified (1) the towed vehicle of Spink to have positive buoyancy based upon the
positive buoyancy of Lefebvre's tow buoy and (2) the towed vehicle system of Spink to
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007