Appeal No. 1997-3975
Application No. 08/395,376
is nothing in Shofner or Duncan which would have suggested to
the artisan that a means for performing the specific steps of
claim 14 should be provided. The steps recited in claim 14
are not
inherently required by the systems of either Shofner or
Duncan. Therefore, we do not sustain the rejection of claims
14 and 18. Since claim 15 depends from claim 14, we also do
not sustain the rejection of claim 15.
With respect to claim 16, appellants again argue that
nothing in either Shofner or Duncan suggests the analyzer
means as recited therein [brief, page 9]. The examiner
responds that Shofner teaches that the sensors scatter light
based on the size and shape of the entities, and one of the
properties specifically
determined in Shofner is the length of various entities. The
examiner asserts that it would have been obvious to the
artisan
to determine separately the length of looped, unlooped and
multiply looped entities based on the different scattering
properties that they possess.
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