Appeal No. 1999-1190
Application 08/481,367
density and at least 1 millisecond pulse duration and that
Boquillon, therefore, meets the appellants’ claimed method
(answer, page 7). Wu’s “some microseconds”, however, appears
to be at least a couple orders of magnitude less than the “at
least one millisecond” recited in the appellants’ claim 1.
Also, as mentioned above, Boquillon teaches that the
wavelength of the radiation emitted by the laser is such that
the risk of altering the subjacent material is virtually
nonexistent, and Boquillon further teaches that the surface is
cleaned in the absence of an observably thermal effect
(abstract). These disclosures indicate that the surface is
not melted, and the examiner provides no convincing argument
to the contrary.
For the above reasons we conclude that the examiner has
not established a prima facie case of obviousness of the
invention recited in any of the appellants’ claims over
Boquillon in view of EPA ‘646.3
DECISION
3The examiner relies upon EPA ‘646 only for the
disclosure set forth above regarding the rejection over Wu in
view of EPA ‘646.
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