Appeal No. 2002-1674
Application 09/089,901
relative persuasiveness of the arguments. See In re Oetiker,
977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992); In re
Hedges, 783 F.2d 1038, 1039, 228 USPQ 685, 686 (Fed. Cir. 1986);
In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir.
1984); and In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1052, 189 USPQ 143, 147
(CCPA 1976).
With respect to independent claims 1 and 11, Appellants’
arguments in response to the Examiner’s obviousness rejection
based on the combination of JP 4-141827 and Moriya initially
assert a failure by the Examiner to set forth a prima facie case
of obviousness since all of the claimed limitations are not
taught or suggested by the applied prior art references. After
careful review of the applied JP 4-141827 and Moriya references
in light of the arguments of record, we find Appellants’
assertions to be unpersuasive. In our view, Appellants’
arguments unpersuasively focus on the individual differences
between the limitations of claims 1 and 11 and each of the
applied references. It is apparent, however, from the Examiner’s
line of reasoning in the Answer, that the basis for the
obviousness rejection is the combination of JP 4-141827 and
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007