Appeal No. 1998-1925 Page 3
Application No. 08/430,956
reasoning in support of the rejections, and to the Brief (Paper No. 14) and Reply Brief
1
(Paper No. 16) for the appellants’ arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the
appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
The appellants’ invention is directed to a “hybrid passive optical limiter for
protecting eyes and sensors from intense visible and near infrared laser radiation.” To
accomplish this, it utilizes a thermal-defocusing mechanism to limit the passage of a
focused incident light beam within a first predetermined intensity range and a nonlinear
scattering mechanism to limit the passage of such light having an intensity above this
range. Specification, page 1. As disclosed, both of these tasks are accomplished by a
single protective element comprising a cell having a chamber whose inner walls are of
roughened glass and which contains a thermally responsive solution the light-passing
characteristics of which change in response to the heat applied to it by an incident beam of
light. Depending upon the thermal influence upon the solution, it acts upon the light in
1Submitted with the Reply Brief was a declaration under 37 C.F.R. 1.132 by
inventors Justus and Huston, which the examiner refused to enter on the ground that it was
not timely submitted (Supplemental Answer, page 1). Accordingly, the declaration is not
before us, and we have not considered the information contained therein.
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