Appeal No. 2004-1596 Application No. 09/544,858 In addition, the examiner relied upon Appellant’s Admitted Prior Art (specification, pages 5, 11 and 12) relating to a method for performing transactions over a bus. Appellant’s Admitted Prior Art (AAPA). Claims 1-16, 23-25, 27-34 and 37-39 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over AAPA and Kowalski. Claims 18, 19, 35 and 36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over AAPA and Kowalski and further in view of Hewitt. We make reference to the answer (Paper No. 19, mailed January 29, 2004) for the Examiner’s reasoning, and to the appeal brief (Paper No. 18, filed December 19, 2003) for Appellant’s arguments thereagainst. OPINION In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the Examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. See In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993). The conclusion that the claimed subject matter is obvious must be supported by evidence, as shown by some objective teaching in the prior art or by knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art that would have led that individual to combine the relevant teachings of the references to arrive at the claimed invention. See In re 3Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007