Appeal No. 1996-2086
Application 08/255,588
some objective teaching or suggestion in the applied prior art, or knowledge generally
available [in the art] would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the
references to arrive at the claimed invention. Pro-Mold & Tool Co. v. Great Lakes
Plastics, Inc., 75 F.3d 1568, 1573, 37 USPQ2d 1626, 1630 (Fed. Cir. 1996). Here, the
examiner has not even begun to provide reasons, based on the applied prior art or
otherwise, as to why it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide
a substrate with a solid gettering material on its surface and to heat said substrate and
gettering material to a temperature greater than, or within 150EC of, the melting point of the
gettering material as described in independent claims 1 and 8. Nor has the examiner
provided any reasons as to why it would have been obvious to such persons to provide a
substrate in fluid communication with a reservoir of gettering material, heat said gettering
material to a temperature above its melting point and to condense droplets of said
gettering material on said substrate as described in independent claim 10. Although we
note the examiner’s statement on p. 4 of the Answer that the phrase “thermal deposition” in
Fuller means “that the metal is heated up to its vapor state and then condensed on the
substrate,” we find no evidence of record to support this statement.
In our view, the examiner has lost sight of the fact that independent claims 1, 8 and
10 are generic in nature and do not have any limitations as to specific substrates, gettering
material or impurities to be removed therefrom. In addition, it appears that the examiner
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