Appeal No. 2004-0504
Application No. 09/455,735
holder is engageable with the second tube holder by means of lamp
socket CL (Answer, page 3). The examiner recognizes that Raabe
fails to disclose a first tube holder arm having one or more
notches, a second tube holder having one or more teeth slidably
engageable with the notches, and that the holders are made of
plastic (Answer, sentence bridging pages 3-4). The examiner
applies Hogendijk for the teaching of a closure device or clamps
with a first clamp having one or more notches along one edge, a
second clamp having one or more teeth slidably engageable with
the notches, and both clamps made from plastic (Answer, page 4).
From these findings, the examiner concludes that it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art at the time the
invention was made “to substitute Raabe’s clamp connection with
Hogendijk’s notches and teeth connection, since it would merely
constitute substitution of functionally equivalent connection
methods.” Id.
It is well settled that the examiner bears the initial
burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness based on
the disclosures of the applied prior art references. See In re
Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir.
1992). It is insufficient to establish obviousness that the
separate elements of the claimed subject matter existed in the
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007