Appeal No. 95-0065
Application 07/568,348
pulse widths and energy densities capable
of vaporizing tissue such as those
claimed since these are not critical; are
well within the scope of one of ordinary
skill in the art; and are necessary to
remove the tissue, thus producing a device
such as claimed.
The Wolbarsht article is concerned with the use of
lasers in surgery in general, although surgery inside the eye
and plastic surgery are mentioned in the last paragraph on the
fourth page. The article is concerned primarily with the CO2
laser. However, in the last paragraph on the second page,
referred to by the examiner, supra, Wolbarsht states:
To assist in confining the thermal
effects to the surface layer, the laser
wavelength must be matched as closely as
possible to the absorption peak of the
material in question.
The absorption spectrum of water, as given
in Figure 1, shows a peak near 2.8 µm,
although the absorption is certainly
sufficiently high at 10.6 µm to be adequate
to make the CO
2
laser work for tissue cutting. However,
for the maximum absorption in the shortest
tissue
distance, a laser in the range from 2.7 to
3.1 µm would seem to offer some advantage.
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