Appeal No. 2003-1153
Application No. 09/349,214
arrive at a restraint deployment code as recited in steps a-d of
claim 1. Therefore, we will not sustain the Examiner's rejection
of claim 1.
With respect to claim 2, we note that claim 2 recites the
above limitations "crash classification mask" and "restraint
deployment code" due to its dependency on claim 1. Accordingly,
we will not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 2 for the
same reasons as above.
We now address the rejection of claims 3 and 4 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious by Hermann in view of
Kincaid.
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the Examiner
bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443,
1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992). See also In are Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468,
1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir. 1984). The Examiner can
satisfy this burden by showing that some objective teaching in
the prior art or knowledge generally available to one of ordinary
skill in the art suggests the claimed subject matter. In re
Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
Only if this initial burden is met, does the burden of coming
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