Appeal No. 2005-0980 4
Application No. 09/818,228
3) Claims 4 and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over the combined
disclosures of Lethi and Brain;
4) Claims 7 and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over the combined
disclosures of Lethi and Spofford; and
5) Claims 9, 10, 21, 22, 26 and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over the
combined disclosures of Lethi and Daniell.
OPINION
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 the 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 prior art 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,
245 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 in the art at the time of the invention. In re Nomiya, 509 F.2d 566, 570-71, 184
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007