Appeal No. 96-1931
Application 07/995,635
We reject claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. ' 102(b) as being
anticipated by the disclosure of Agostinelli, which reference was
newly cited in the examiner=s answer as noted above. Example 1
of Agostinelli teaches a polished quartz substrate having a thin
film of zirconia (ZrO2) produced thereon. The zirconia film is
indicated as being transparent [column 20, line 36]. Example 5
of Agostinelli teaches that the substrate could be made from
polycrystalline alumina [column 21, lines 54-55]. The invention
as broadly recited in claim 1 is fully met by the article de-
scribed in example 5 of Agostinelli.
We note that appellants indicate that Agostinelli is a
reference under 35 U.S.C. ' 102(e), and that they will antedate
the reference if it is actually applied in a rejection [reply
brief, pages 1-2]. If this point were correct, we might be
inclined to let the examiner decide if the rejection should be
made. It appears to us, however, that Agostinelli qualifies as
prior art under 35 U.S.C. ' 102(b). The filing date of the
application is December 18, 1992. The issue date of Agostinelli
is May 21, 1991. Since May 21, 1991 is more than one year before
15
Page: Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007