Appeal 2007-0409
Application 10/479,203
The Examiner relies on the following prior art references to show
unpatentability:
Uchiumi JP 61-208648 Sep. 17, 1986
Nonaka EP 1 001 415 A1 May 17, 2000
The Examiner made the following rejections1:
1. Claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph for failing to
comply with the written description requirement;
2. Claims 13 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 112 second paragraph as
indefinite; and
3. Claims 1, 3-5, 9, 11-12, and 14-16 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
anticipated by Uchiumi.
4. Claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Uchiumi in view of Nonaka.
ISSUES
I. The Examiner contends that the Specification does not provide
support for a transparent layer having a thickness of 10 nm or less.
Appellants contend that one of ordinary skill in the art, upon reading the
Specification, would have understood that the inventors had possession of
the entire claim 2 range of less than 25 nm although there is no explicit
disclosure of the entire range. The issue before us is: Does the omission of
any discussion as to minimum thickness in Appellants’ Specification
reasonably convey to the artisan that Appellants had possession of the range
of 10 nm or less at the time of the invention?
1 The rejection of claims 12-18 and 20 under 35 U.S.C § 112, second
paragraph, has been withdrawn. (Answer 3).
3
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