Appeal No. 1997-3480
Application No. 08/315,841
Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1052, 189 USPQ 143, 147 (CCPA 1976).
Only those arguments actually made by appellants have been
considered in this decision. Arguments which appellants could
have made but chose not to make in the brief have not been
considered [see 37 CFR § 1.192(a)].
With respect to each of the independent claims, the
examiner cites Uehara and Murakami as each disclosing a method
and apparatus for detecting the inclination of a wafer with
respect to a reference plane. The examiner observes that
Uehara and Murakami fail to teach the incident angle being not
less than 82 degrees (claims 73, 78 and 84) or not less than
85 degrees (claim 82)[ answer, page 3]. The examiner cites
Akamatsu as teaching a device for detecting the position of a
wafer in which the incident angle of light is greater than 80
degrees. The examiner asserts that it would have been obvious
to irradiate the objects of Uehara or Murakami at an incidence
angle of not less than 82 degrees or not less than 85 degrees
based on the teachings of Akamatsu [id., pages 3-4].
Appellants make several arguments that we will
consider in turn. Appellants’ first argument is that neither
Uehara nor Murakami teaches an incident angle of not less than
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