Appeal No. 1997-3636
Application No. 08/584,642
We therefore will not sustain the rejection of claim 1
under § 102(a), nor, it follows, of claims 2 to 21 dependent
thereon.
35 U.S.C § 103(a)
The examiner's position as to obviousness is expressed in
the single sentence (answer, p. 3), "It would also be [sic:
have been] obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art to
melt [the chromium of Takagi] prior to vaporizing." The
examiner cites no evidence in support of this statement, but
even assuming the statement to be correct, there is no
evidence or reasoning to explain why it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill to disregard the teaching of
Takagi and provide a stream of
molten material as required by the second step of claim 1,
instead of the stream of vapor disclosed by Takagi.
Accordingly, the alternative rejection under § 103(a)
will not be sustained.
Conclusion
The examiner's decision to reject claims 1 to 21 is
reversed.
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