Appeal No. 96-0346
Application 08/007,511
placing two of them in series as individually taught by this
reference because the examiner views this case as holding that
the mere duplication of parts for a multiplied effect would have
been obvious to the artisan within 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Rather than repeat the positions of the appellants and the
examiner, reference is made to the briefs and the answer for the
respective details thereof.
OPINION
We reverse the outstanding rejection.
We understand St. Regis as being heavily fact dependent and
conclude that the examiner within 35 U.S.C. § 103 has over-relied
upon the thinking processes the court set forth in that case.
The first embodiment shown in Figs. 1A and 1B appears to be
structurally similar to the subject matter of any one of the two
optical isolators set forth in independent claim 1 on appeal.
The other embodiments set forth in Figs. 4A, 5A, 6A and 7A in
Chang appear to teach different numbers of elements of a singular
rather than a serial duplicated arrangement of optical isolators.
The summary paragraph at the bottom of col. 8 of Chang
appears to come the closest to suggesting to the artisan the
reasoning advanced by the examiner, where it says at lines 62
through 67 that “[o]bviously more than 5 anisotropic crystal
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