Appeal No. 1997-0947
Application 08/385,926
Claims 1 to 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103. As evidence of obviousness, the
examiner relies upon Texaco in view of Ravinet.
Rather than repeat the positions of appellants and the examiner, reference is made to the Brief
and the Answer for the respective details thereof.3
OPINION
In reaching our conclusion on the issues raised in this appeal, we have carefully considered
appellants’ specification and claims, the applied references, and the respective viewpoints of appellants
and the examiner. As a consequence of our review of the record before us, we find that Texaco,
Hubbard, and Ravinet, fail to teach or suggest the salient features of claims 1 to 7 on appeal of a
substrate having a window and a convex diaphragm portion formed integrally therein, with a P/E film
element consisting of upper and lower electrodes and a P/E layer sandwiched in between, wherein the
P/E unit is laminated on the convex diaphragm by a film-forming method. Accordingly, we will reverse
the examiner’s decisions rejecting claims 1 to 7 on appeal as being obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
At the outset, we note that the examiner admits that the primary reference to Texaco (see
Figure 11 therein) "doesn’t show a convex diaphragm" (Answer, page 4 and page 5). The examiner
then relies upon either of two secondary references to Hubbard and Ravinet to teach this feature. The
examiner notes quartz crystal 28 in Hubbard’s Figure 3 as being a convex piezoelectric disk which
3We note that the amendment submitted with the Brief on August 29, 1996, has been entered and
considered as per the October 30, 1996, communication from the examiner.
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