Appeal No. 96-0311
Application No. 08/155,771
With regard to the examiner’s position with regard to the
adequacy of the disclosure pertaining to deflection values
down to zero, appellants are not required to disclose every
possible (and impossible) value and ways of obtaining those
values. A deflection of zero is ideal and unobtainable as a
practical matter. But appellants have clearly disclosed how
to obtain deflections below the 1500 Angstrom level and there
is clearly adequate disclosure for the subject matter claimed.
Again, we will not sustain the rejections under 35 U.S.C. §
112, first paragraph.
We now turn to the rejection of claims 1, 2, 4 and 5
under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We also will not sustain this
rejection.
Before comparing the instant claimed subject matter to
the applied prior art, we ascertain what is encompassed by the
claimed subject matter. Independent claim 1 recites, inter
alia, that “the maximum deflection of any bent portion...with
respect to a reference length of 2 mm is not more than 1,500D
in the entire region of the surface...excluding annular
areas...” having a certain width. While we find “bent” to be
an awkward word in the context of the present invention, we
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