Appeal No. 96-1763
Application No. 08/056,941
The Examiner sets forth the rejection of claims 1, 5, 6 and 11 and states that "it is
desirable to have the effective contact area much larger than the active stripe, and on a low
resistivity region, for better current flow, and for this a buried blocking layer is
desirable, with the contact over the whole top surface." (See answer at page 4.) From
the teaching of Dixon, the Examiner then continues to conclude that the combination of
Kobayashi, Marschall and Dixon would have been modified to have the stripe more heavily
doped than the cap and N type blocking layer. (See answer at page 5.) Appellants have
argued the lack of reasoning by the Examiner in the combination of the teachings. (See
brief at pages 6-7.) We agree with the appellants that the Examiner has not adequately
set forth a line of reasoning for the combination of the teachings. The Examiner sets forth
that all of the references are directed to stripe lasers, therefore the combination of
teachings would have been obvious because "[a]ll references, of course, are 'closely
related in the same art', double-heterojunction semiconductor injection lasers with buried
blocking layers for current confinement." (See answer at page 6.) The mere fact that the
references are "all closely related" is not per se a proper motivation to combine various
disparate parts from each reference as the Examiner has impliedly asserted.
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