Appeal No. 1996-2163
Application 08/106,541
those rejections applicable to the dependent claims associated with independent method
claim 27.
We sustain the rejection of dependent claims 30 and 32 under 35 USC § 103 in
light of the collective teachings of Ishii in view of Kobayashi as set forth by the examiner at
pages 9 and 10 of the Supplemental Answer. For ultrasonic embodiments, Kobayashi’s
figure 7 indicates that it was known in the art to fill at least the ultrasonic chamber with solid
material. Moreover, what is more telling however is appellant’s own description of his
disclosed invention in figures 5 and 6 as set forth at the bottom of page 7 and top of page
8 of appellant’s CIP specification as filed. There, appellant clearly indicates that it was
known in the art for certain ultrasonic environments to completely fill an antenna body and
its associated skirt with solid material and to mount an ultrasonic drive onto an antenna
body. These admissions cannot be ignored. Taken with Kobayashi, obviously Ishii’s
teaching would have been applicable to ultrasonic as well as audible range acoustic
environments.
For his part, appellant’s remarks at page 9 of the principal Brief on appeal and
page 4 of the second Reply Brief both basically take the position that Kobayashi and Ishii
did not teach or consider methodologies to reduce the edge defraction of their horns. As
noted earlier in this decision, this position is unpersuasive since there is no feature recited
in dependent claims 30 and 32 as to any edge reduction at all. Appellant’s arguments do
not consider the features of the actual claims on appeal nor the teaching value of
Kobayashi. As noted in the last paragraph, we do not regard the examiner’s position as
based upon prohibited hindsight.
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