Appeal No. 1996-2991
Application 08/302,931
requires that the glass containing the boron oxide is “not
dependent on the boron content of the glass.” According to
appellants' disclosure at the middle of page 3, it was
standard practice in the art to prepare optical waveguides by
varying the concentration of the dopants radially through the
core region. In accordance with the feature of the invention
expressed at the top of the page 4 and the top of page 10 of
the specification as filed, the claimed refractive index
patterns are produced in the invention independently of the
boron content of the glass, that is, the glass has a uniform
composition of boron. In contrast, none of the applied prior
art or appellants assessment of the prior art of the earlier
noted specification pages 1 and 2 indicate that it was known
in the art that any of the dopants would be uniformly
distributed in a manner differently than appellants indicate
at page 3 of the specification as filed that the normal
practice in the art was not to do so.
In conclusion, we have reversed the stated rejection of
various claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102, and have affirmed the
rejection of claims 12 through 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We
have extended this rejection under the provisions of 37 CFR §
11
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