Appeal No. 2006-0948
Application No. 10/354,756
reiterated by appellant in the Reply Brief. (Reply Brief,
paragraph bridging pages 4 and 5).
In response to this argument, the examiner argues
that “Wooldridge et al. is concerned with roll packing
padded products with ‘spring-like characteristics’ . . .
One of ordinary skill in the art could easily look to the
invention to Wooldridge for manufacturing spring pads, such
as those taught by Withoff, instead of filter pads with
spring-like characteristics.” (Answer, page 6).
Once more, we agree with the appellant that the
examiner’s rejection is not well founded.
In contrast to the subject matter recited in
independent claim 1, and as correctly argued by appellant,
Wooldridge involves a filter pad as opposed to a “spring
assembly” and the method disclosed by Wooldridge does not
include a folding step of the “outer edges of . . .
insulator material around end turns of springs of said
spring assembly.”
The examiner has failed to specify how the references
are to be combined to meet the aforequoted features of
claim 1 or what motivation an artisan would have had for so
combining the references. The examiner’s argument noted
above does not specifically address these infirmities of
the rejection.
In light of the above, it is again apparent
that the examiner has failed to carry the initial
burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d at 1445,
24 USPQ2d at 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992). Therefore,
we hereby reverse the examiner’s section 103(a)
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