Appeal No. 95-4470
Application No. 08/223,190
of rejection entered in the answer, claims 17 through 22 now
stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103, the examiner citing APA in
view of Sumida and Simmons regarding claims 17 through 19 and 22,
adding Crow to this combination with regard to claims 20 and 21.
Reference is made to the briefs and answer for the
respective positions of appellants and the examiner.
OPINION
We will not sustain any of the rejections as it is our view
that the examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case of
obviousness with regard to the claimed subject matter.
Turning first to the rejection of claims 1 through 3 and 10,
the examiner contends that Sumida discloses the subject matter of
claim 1, including a suggestion of a monolithic structure, but
for the optical element being in the shape of a right-angle porro
prism. Simmons and Crow are cited to show different forms and
shapes of optical elements, viz, porro prisms, and the examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to substitute the
optical structure of the optical element in Simmons and Crow to
the device of Sumida to achieve “a monolithic optical element,”
as claimed.
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