Appeal No. 1997-0061
Application 08/246,140
that it is only necessary to find a prior art spring/color-
selecting electrode combination that inherently falls within
the claimed range for K when calculated using the equation
for K. We appreciate that it is often difficult or
impossible to make a prima facie case that some dimensional
relationship is inherent in the prior art because patents
are not manufacturing documents and seldom provide
dimensions. The Examiner also correctly recognized that the
burden was on the Patent and Trademark Office to establish a
prima facie case of inherency. Therefore, rather than just
make an unsupported assertion that prior art fixing springs
were within the claimed range, the Examiner found the
Shrader patent that discloses spring dimensions. In the
Examiner's Answer, the Examiner added the Bauder patent and
made a reasonable assumption that the weight of an electrode
would be proportional to the area, so that the 3.54 kg
mask-frame weight for a 34 inch (diagonal) tube in Bauder
(col. 4, lines 14-15) would convert to 1.914 kg
(=(300 in )(3.54 kg)/(554.84 in )) for the 25 inch (diagonal)2 2
tube example for which spring dimensions are given in
Shrader. Thus, the Examiner provided a factual basis for
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