Appeal No. 2006-1149
Application No. 10/296,406
Royka, 490 F.2d 981, 180 USPQ 580 (CCPA 1974).
These showings by the examiner are an essential part of complying with the burden
of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. Note In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24
USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992). If that burden is met, the burden then shifts to the
applicant to overcome the prima facie case with argument and/or evidence. Obviousness is
then determined on the basis of the evidence as a whole and the relative persuasiveness of the
arguments. See Id.; In re Hedges, 783 F.2d 1038, 1039, 228 USPQ 685, 686 (Fed. Cir.
1986); In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir. 1984); and In re
Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1052, 189 USPQ 143, 147 (CCPA 1976). Only those arguments
actually made by appellant have been considered in this decision. Arguments which
appellant could have made but chose not to make in the brief have not been considered and
are deemed to be waived [see 37 CFR § 41.37(c)(1)(vii)(2004)].
We consider first the examiner’s rejection of claims 10-17, 19, and 20 that stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the teachings of Muzslay in
view of Zinn. Since appellant’s arguments with respect to this rejection have treated these
claims as a single group which stand or fall together, we will consider independent claim 10
as the representative claim for this rejection.
Appellant argues that the Zinn patent pertains to a central current distribution
arrangement that is unrelated to the fuel injector plug-in connections disclosed by the
Muzslay patent. Appellant asserts that these two references are not from the same field of
endeavor and therefore the combination of the Muzslay patent with the radial seal taught by
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