Appeal No. 2003-0429
Application 09/282,862
were not well known. Everyday experience for most people is
sufficient to demonstrate that covers are typically movable so to
protect something when closed and to provide access to something
when open. The artisan would have understood that the cover as
taught by Rambaldi must provide the electrostatic discharge path
when the sensor is in use, that is, when a movable cover is open.
With respect to dependent claim 9, appellants broadly
contest the examiner’s finding that the applied prior art teaches
the additional limitation of claim 9 and argue that the examiner
has provided no objective evidence in support of the rejection
[brief, pages 17].
We will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claim 9.
We have carefully reviewed the record in this case, and it
appears to us that the examiner has never addressed the specific
limitation of claim 9. In making the rejection, the examiner
lumped claims 6 and 8-11 together and asserted that these claims
were rejected for the same reasons as claims 1-4. The specific
recitation of claim 9, however, does not appear in claims 1-4.
Therefore, the examiner has never addressed the limitation of
claim 9 on this record. The examiner, therefore, has failed to
establish a prima facie case of the obviousness of claim 9.
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