Appeal No. 2000-0523
Application 08/583,307
The examiner has rejected claim 1 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as being anticipated by each of Brown and Martin, and
in the alternative under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over
each of Brown and Martin.
The rationale for the anticipation rejections (see pages
4 and 5 in the answer) seems to be that since each reference
discloses a barrier having outer curves and a central portion,
the various parameters recited in the claims (presumably
including the effective depth parameter recited in claim 1)
are inherent in the respective prior art structures.
As for the obviousness rejections, the examiner, allowing
for the possibility that the recited parameters might not be
inherent in the Brown and Martin barriers, has concluded that
it would have been obvious “to choose to design within the
claimed ranges as the use of optimum or workable ranges
discovered by routine experimentation is ordinarily within the
skill of the art” (answer, pages 4 and 5).
Neither Brown nor Martin expressly discloses any specific
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