Appeal No. 2003-0755
Application No. 09/190,993
have been modified and/or combined to arrive at the claimed
invention. In our opinion, the Examiner's analysis is sufficiently
reasonable that we find that the Examiner has at least satisfied
the burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. The
burden is, therefore, upon Appellants to come forward with evidence
and/or arguments which persuasively rebut the Examiner’s prima
facie case of obviousness. Only those arguments actually made by
Appellants have been considered in this decision. Arguments which
Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Brief have
not been considered [see 37 CFR § 1.192(a)].
Appellants’ arguments in response to the obviousness rejection
initially assert that the Examiner has failed to establish 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 prior art 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
representative claim 14 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 Williams and Teicher. One cannot show
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