Appeal No. 2003-0693
Application No. 09/006,248
In light of the above, we consider that the examiner has met
the PTO’s initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness of the subject matter of claim 29.
Although appellants state (main brief, page 6) that “all of
the claims at issue stand or fall separately from each other,”
claims 31, 33 and 41 have not been separately argued with any
reasonable degree of specificity apart from independent claim 29
from which they depend. Therefore, we consider that the reference
evidence adduced by the examiner also is sufficient to establish a
prima facie case of obviousness of these claims.
Having concluded that a prima facie case of obviousness has
been established with respect to claims 29, 31, 33 and 41, we turn
to the evidence of nonobviousness in the form of the above noted
Sawdon declaration submitted by appellants, bearing in mind the
necessity of reweighing the entire merits of the matter and hence
of considering all the evidence of record anew. In re Piasecki,
745 F.2d 1468, 1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
The Sawdon declaration sets forth that declarant Stephen E.
Sawdon is the president of BTM Corporation, which owns the present
application. Mr. Sawdon states on page 1 of the declaration that
BTM Corporation sold over 200 end arm effectors (EAEs) constructed
in accordance with the disclosure of the present application to
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