Appeal No. 2004-1746
Application No. 09/902,403
Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over the combined disclosures of either Smith or
Mulcahy, and Drum.
We have carefully reviewed the claims, specification and
applied prior art references, including all of the arguments
advanced by both the examiner and the appellant in support of
their respective positions. This review has led us to conclude
that the examiner’s Section 103 rejections are well founded.
Accordingly, we will sustain the examiner’s Section 103
rejections for essentially those reasons set forth in the Answer
and below.
Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, to establish a prima facie case of
obviousness, there must be some objective teachings or
suggestions in the applied prior art references and/or knowledge
generally available to a person having ordinary skill in the art
that would have led such person to arrive at the claimed subject
matter. See generally In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1447-48, 24
USPQ2d 1443, 1446-47 (Fed. Cir. 1992)(Nies, J., concurring);
In re Vaeck, 947 F.2d 488, 493, 20 USPQ2d 1438, 1442 (Fed. Cir.
1991). The knowledge generally available to a person having
ordinary skill in the art includes the appellant’s admission
regarding what was known at the time of the invention. See In re
Nomiya, 509 F.2d 566, 570-71, 184 USPQ 607, 611-12 (CCPA
1975)(the admitted prior art in an applicant’s specification may
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