February 2014

Spotlight Info

In In re Giannelli, No. 13-1167 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 13, 2014), the Federal Circuit reversed the Board’s affirmation of the examiner’s rejection of claims 1-25 of U.S. Patent Application No. 10/378,261
(“the ’261 application”), holding that the claims of the ’261 application were not obvious in light of U.S. Patent No. 5,997,447.  The Court reasoned that the Board did not carry its burden of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness because the Board did not determine whether it would have been obvious to modify the prior art apparatus to arrive at the claimed rowing machine.  See this month’s edition of Last Month at the Federal Circuit for a full summary of this decision.