Appeal No. 96-1515
Application 08/161/859
outside air, the examiner has failed to establish a prima
facie case for the obviousness of independent claims 1 and 15.
With respect to independent claims 28 and 30, each of
these claims recites a densified outermost surface of the
resin package having the same composition as the resin
package. The examiner’s rejection on pages 4-8 of the answer
never addresses this limitation of claims 28 and 30, and in
fact, claims 28 and 30 are never mentioned in the discussion
of the prior art rejections. Although the examiner had
previously determined that the “same composition” limitation
was not supported by the original disclosure, it is improper
to ignore claim limitations for prior art purposes as we noted
above. Therefore, the examiner has also failed to establish a
prima facie case of obviousness for independent claims 28 and
30.
With respect to independent claims 31 and 32, each of
these claims recites that the densified region of the resin
package is formed by treating the surface with a plasma of an
inactive gas rather than by deposition. The examiner has
considered this recitation to be a method of making limitation
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