Appeal No. 2002-1696 Page 5
Application No. 08/921,884
2. OBVIOUSNESS DETERMINATION
Having determined what subject matter is being claimed, the next inquiry is
whether the subject matter would have been obvious. "In rejecting claims under 35
U.S.C. Section 103, the examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie
case of obviousness." In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956
(Fed. Cir. 1993) (citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444
(Fed. Cir. 1992)). "'A prima facie case of obviousness is established when the
teachings from the prior art itself would . . . have suggested the claimed subject matter
to a person of ordinary skill in the art.'" In re Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783, 26 USPQ2d 1529,
1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (quoting In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1051, 189 USPQ 143,
147 (CCPA 1976)).
Here, King discloses "a communication system 100 comprising a terminal 105
for transmitting messages concerning sports events to a plurality of radio receivers 110,
such as portable pagers or transceivers, over the air." Col. 2, ll. 59-63. Although such
messages may comprise records, "for example, . . . details about which team is at bat,
the inning of the game, the number of outs for the team at bat, and the score of the
game," col. 4, ll. 6-9, we are unpersuaded that each record includes data customized to
a radio receiver that will receive the message. To the contrary, "King teach[es] sending
the same information to all subscriber units . . . ." (Appeal Br. at 9.) Specifically, the
paragraph cited by the examiner explains that "the radio receivers 110 receive common
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