Appeal No. 2005-0090
Application No. 10/057,025
The examiner further maintains that “[t]he appellant [sic] does not provide any
arguments as to why Taub does not teach a funnel-shaped ink manifold or as to why
Taub can not be combined with the other prior art references.” (See answer at page 7.)
We disagree with the examiner position’s and posturing. We find that the examiner has
the burden of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness of the claimed invention
in light of the clear admission by the examiner that the teachings of Ramaswami are
deficient alone. Therefore, the examiner continues to have the burden to establish the
initial showing that the combination teaches the invention as recited in independent
claim 11 or that the prior art as a whole would have fairly suggested the invention as
recited in independent claim 11.
From our review of the teachings of Figueredo, we find neither embodiment in
Figures 1 or 1A teaches or suggests the use of a manifold that is funnel-shaped in a
silicon substrate. From our review of the teachings of Taub, we find Taub does disclose
the precise manufacturing of a funnel-shaped ink slot so as to meet the capacity
demands of higher frequency printing, but no teaching that would have suggested a
modification of the teachings of Ramaswami and Figueredo. We further find that the
examiner has provided individual motivations for each of the incremental additions to
the base teachings of Ramaswami and Figueredo, but we find no overall problem or line
of reasoning as to why it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at
the time of the invention to make all of these incremental modifications to the basic
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007