Appeal No. 2002-1223
Application 09/435,455
Brief). Nevertheless, the appellant argues that the rejections
based on these references are improper because “Smith and Muntz
clearly do not teach or suggest a method or apparatus for
preferentially deflecting a portion of the generated droplets in
two dimensions or a raster scanning as presently claimed” (Reply
Brief, page 7). This argument is unconvincing for a number of
reasons.
First, contrary to the appellant’s apparent belief, the
independent claims on appeal do not require that the liquid metal
droplets be deflected in two different directions. Rather,
appealed claim 1 simply requires that a portion of the droplets
be deflected in a first “dimension,” a second “dimension” and a
combination thereof. Thus, while this claim may require droplet
deflection in plural dimensions, the claim language permits all
of these plural dimensions to be in the same direction. As an
example, claim 1 encompasses an embodiment wherein plural
droplets are deflected at different distances or dimensions but
in only one direction. The language of appealed independent
claim 10 is similar but even more broad since it recites
deflecting the metal droplets in “one of a first dimension, a
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007