Appeal No. 2006-2572
Application No. 10/437,569
(mailed 4/14/2006) for the reasoning in support of the rejection, and to Appellants’ brief
(filed 3/13/06) and reply brief (filed 6/12/06) for the arguments thereagainst.
Claims 1 and 5-9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Feng
in view of Graber. Claim 2 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Feng in view of Graber further in view of Miksch. Claim 4 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C.
103 as being unpatentable over Feng in view of Graber further in view of Hayashi.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
Appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the respective
positions articulated by Appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we
make the determinations that follow.
We note that Appellants have addressed the examiner’s rejection in three groups.
We have reviewed the examiner’s statement of the rejection and the relevant claim
interpretations made by the examiner. We find that the examiner has interpreted the claim
and the prior art in a reasonable manner and find that the examiner has set forth a prima facie
case of obviousness of the invention as recited in independent claim 1 (Answer 4-6).
Therefore, we look to Appellants’ arguments in the briefs to show error in therein.
Appellants’ main argument at page 5 of the Brief is that there is no motivation to
combine the reference teachings as proposed by the Examiner and that the Examiner has
relied upon improper hindsight reconstruction. We disagree with Appellants and find that
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