Appeal No. 96-1368
Application 08/080,891
Tatsuno et al. (Tatsuno) 4,822,151 Apr. 18, 1989
Iwanaga et al. (Iwanaga) 4,951,274 Aug. 21, 1990
De Vaan et al. (De Vaan)4 0 428 213 A1 May 22, 1991
(European Patent Office)
Murty et al. (Murty), Liquid Crystal Wedge as a Polarizing
Element and Its Use in Shearing Interferometry, 19 Optical
Engineering 113-15 (Jan./Feb. 1980).
The references have been applied against the claims as
follows:5
(a) Claim 1: Rogers in view of Takayanagi;
(b) Claims 2, 3, 5, and 11: Rogers in view of Takayanagi
and Tatsuno; 6
The first-named inventor is actually Broer. We will4
refer to this reference as De Vaan to be consistent with the
examiner and Appellant.
The level of skill in the art is represented by the5
references. In re Oelrich, 579 F.2d 86, 91, 198 USPQ 210, 214
(CCPA 1978) ("the PTO usually must evaluate both the scope and
content of the prior art and the level of ordinary skill
solely on the cold words of the literature"). In re GPAC
Inc., 57 F.3d 1573, 1579, 35 USPQ2d 1116, 1121 (Fed. Cir.
1995)(Board did not err in adopting the approach that the
level of skill in the art was best determined by the
references of record).
Although this rejection is described as based on Rogers6
in view of Tatsuno (final Office action at 7; Answer at 6), it
is apparent from the discussion of the rejection that these
references are relied on in combination with Takayanagi.
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