Appeal No. 1999-0555
Application No. 08/593,330
The fatal deficiency of the examiner’s position is that it is
not supported by the applied reference evidence. As
acknowledged by the examiner, the Japanese ‘848 reference
contains no disclosure regarding the disposition and length of
the heat generating portion relative to the first and second
levels of multiple openings. On the other hand, neither
Yamada nor Kato contains any teaching or suggestion of first
and second levels of multiple openings. Instead, the
detectors disclosed in these references employ elongated slots
as correctly pointed out by the appellants. Moreover, the
examiner points to nothing in these last-mentioned references
which would have suggested locating and sizing the heat
generating part of a detector heater between first and second
levels of multiple openings as discussed in the above-quoted
portion of the answer.
In an attempt to support his obviousness conclusion, the
examiner also argues that “[l]ocating the heat generating
portion adjacent the electrodes would be [sic, would have
been] obvious because that is where the electrodes are”
(answer, page 8). As a matter of clarification, we point out
that the heat generating part of Yamada’s heater appears to
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007