Appeal No. 97-0126
Application No. 08/314,749
suggestion to combine a plurality of lens arrays into a
staggered assembly as claimed.
Upon careful review of Yamanishi, we are in agreement
with both of the above arguments of Appellant. The Examiner’s
questioning of the purpose of Appellant’s staggered lens
assembly does not address the issue of obviousness. The
conclusion that such arrangement is a matter of obvious design
choice, as suggested by the Examiner, is not supported by any
evidence of record. We further agree that the portion of the
disclosure of Yamanishi relied on by the Examiner teaches only
a single lens array with no suggestion that a plurality of
such arrays could be coupled together, let alone in the
staggered configuration as claimed. Although not mentioned by
the Examiner, we do note that the embodiment illustrated in
Figure 14 of Yamanishi has an assembly of two lens arrays. As
evident from the Figure 14 illustration and accompanying
disclosure, however, the assembled arrays are in a side-by-
side configuration instead of staggered end-to-end as claimed.
With respect to method claim 4, we note that the Examiner
has never addressed the limitations contained in the recited
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