Appeal No. 2003-1610 Page 8
Application No. 09/715,128
teaching or suggestion within Chou for a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time
the invention was made to have drastically reduce the preferred thickness of 0.15 inch
(3.81 mm) for the stopper plate 34 to be within the claimed range of 1.5 mm to 2.3 mm.
Moreover, in the rejection before us in this appeal (answer, pp. 3-5), the
examiner never found that it would have been obvious at the time the invention was
made to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Chou's stopper plate 34 to
be within the claimed range of 1.5 mm to 2.3 mm. Instead, the examiner found only
that it would have been obvious to have modified Chou's stopper plate 34 to have a
thickness other than that explicitly cited in the patent (i.e., 0.15 inch). While the
examiner's determination is correct, this does not necessarily result in or render obvious
the claimed thickness range of the rear face (i.e., 1.5 mm to 2.3 mm).
Since the examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case of obviousness
with respect to the claims under appeal for the reasons set forth above, the decision of
the examiner to reject claims 3 to 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
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