Appeal No. 2005-2108 Page 4
Application No. 10/360,982
all the evidence before us, it is our conclusion that the evidence adduced by the
examiner is insufficient to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to
the claims under appeal. Accordingly, we will not sustain the examiner's rejection of
claims 1 to 8 and 10 to 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Our reasoning for this determination
follows.
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). A prima facie case of obviousness is
established by presenting evidence that would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to
combine the relevant teachings of the references to arrive at the claimed invention. See
In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988) and In re
Lintner, 458 F.2d 1013, 1016, 173 USPQ 560, 562 (CCPA 1972).
All the claims under appeal are drawn to a strut assembly having a suspension
damper comprising, inter alia, (1) a substantially vertically-oriented tube having a top
end and a bottom end; (2) a rod guide assembly closing the bottom end of the tube;
(3) a damping piston assembly disposed within the tube and slidably mounted therein
for reciprocal movement in the tube, wherein the tube is substantially filled with a liquid
having a specific gravity that damps the reciprocating movement of the damping piston
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