Appeal No. 1997-3930
Application 08/394,596
quantitative and not qualitative detection. In particular, on
page 10 of the brief, Appellants argue that the last
limitation of claim 1 is not met by the references and the
claim limitation of claim 2 is not met by the references.
Appellants argue that the problem overcome and the teaching
provided by the most pertinent art of record is to determine
either the presence and absence of petroleum in water or the
concentration of protein in a blood sample. In contradiction,
Appellants' claimed invention is a sensor which provides a
evanescent wave spectrum of a sample.
On page 3 of the answer, the Examiner states that Silvus
discloses everything except a metal halide fiber optic with a
non-cladded portion. We note that the Examiner has not
pointed out the means that are disclosed in Silvus which would
meet the Appellants' claim means to obtain an evanescent
spectrum of the hydrocarbon sample from the non-cladded
portion. On page 7 of the answer, the Examiner appears to
respond to the Appellants' argument by stating that the
Silvus-Minekane-Fuller combination discloses measuring the
evanescent spectrum since the evanescent spectrum is obtained
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