Appeal No. 1996-2086
Application 08/255,588
antimony and silver. The method recited in appellant’s claim 8, therefore, would have been
prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art over Fuller. For this reason and
because appellant has not provided any argument regarding claim 8 which is not
addressed above, I would affirm the rejection of claim 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Rejection of claim 10
Appellant’s claim 10 requires that droplets of gettering material are condensed on
the substrate. The examiner argues that Fuller’s term “thermal deposition” encompasses
heating metal to its vapor state and then condensing it on the substrate (answer, pages 3-
4). Appellant argues (brief, page 4): “Fuller’s examples nowhere hint at droplets of liquid
gettering material, the Examiner’s interpretation of ‘thermal deposition’ seems overly
optimistic.”
Appellant again is limiting his consideration to the examples which, as stated
above, is improper. The relevant question is whether Fuller’s disclosure of use of “thermal
deposition” would have fairly suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of
appellant’s invention, use of a method in which droplets of metal are condensed on the
substrate surface.
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