Appeal No. 95-3900 Page 11
Application No. 07/978,030
possible. In re Morris, 127 F.3d at 1056, 44 USPQ2d at 1029.
In the present case, they have not met that burden.
We also reject claims 3 and 9 under section 103 in view
of Wildey's admitted prior art (Figure 1), which appears to
show the structure of claim 9. The "comprising" language of
claim 9 would not exclude Wildey's additional plate 14.
Wildey reports that the spacers are not shown for simplicity.
(3:54-58.) The cavities 17 are "quarter-wave cavities" (3:49-
53), which is sufficiently near the claimed range for
concavities to require explanation or distinction. See
Geisler, 116 F.3d at 1469, 43 USPQ2d at 1365 (A close value
may shift the burden of going forward.). As we have
previously indicated, a person having ordinary skill in the
art would want to reduce thickness and would, thus, have been
motivated to seek optimal values at or below a quarter-wave.
(See also Wildey at 4:33-36 (reducing stretch, which is a
linear function of cavity depth d, is desirable).) Since the
cavities are formed by pressing (4:28-31), the method
limitation of claim 3 would have been obvious as well.
DECISION
We reverse the section 102 rejection of all claims. We
reverse the section 103 rejection of claim 4 pro forma in view
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