Appeal No. 1997-4423 Application No. 08/355,009 a plurality of shutters; and a plurality of operating members for independently controlling respective positions of said plurality of shutters from outside the processing chamber. It is the examiner’s view that the use of shutters to change the areas of radiation ports is taught by Doehler and controlling shutters from outside an operating chamber by Bloom and Kenichi, and that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the apparatus disclosed in the admitted prior art by adding such structure. Doehler is directed to a microwave energy apparatus the purpose of which is to deposit plasma uniformly over an area in a vessel. It is equipped with a microwave applicator means 40 that comprises in the embodiment shown in Figure 2 a plurality of apertures through which the microwave energy passes. According to this reference, the distribution of the microwave energy can be controlled by blocking and unblocking the apertures (column 8, lines 31-34) or by partially unblocking them (column 8, line 44) by means of shutters. Further in this regard, Figure 3 shows another embodiment in which a single shutter is used to vary the size of the an aperture. In view of these teachings, it is our opinion that 7Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007