Appeal No. 97-0745
Application No. 08/355,886
by the establishment of certain dimensional relationships between
the various components. Specification, pages 1 through 4.
As recited in independent claim 1, the invention comprises a
metal stencil mask of foil produced from an essentially
homogeneous metal sheet having a thickness of less than about 200
microns, a stencil formed in the foil and extending inwardly from
a first exterior surface to a first depth, and a mesh formed in
the foil and extending inwardly from a second surface to a second
depth, wherein the ratio of the first depth to the second depth
is less than 60:40.
The examiner is of the view that the subject matter of this
claim would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
on the basis of the disclosure of Ahn. The appellant argues
that, while Ahn bears a strong resemblance of the claimed mask,
the reference fails to disclose or teach the required 60:40 ratio
between the depths of the stencil and the mesh. The examiner’s
stated position, however, is that while Ahn does not specify that
the claimed ratio is present in his mask, one of ordinary skill
would have understood this to be the case by recognizing from the
drawings that the two layers appear to be of similar depths,
considering that “if the ratio of the depths were to be 10:90 or
any other extreme . . . the reference would have made a note of
4
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