Appeal No. 1998-0126 Application 08/272,700 sustain the rejection of claims 14, 22/14, 23/14 and 23/14, since they are dependent from claim 4 and contain the same unmet combination. Claim 5 recites the same sharp discharge ends, and additionally, that the pitch (P) between the ends, and the distance (D) to the charge receiving member, are related in accordance with 4#D/P#6. Appellants argue that the claimed range achieves unexpected results and is not merely an optimization of the 2 to 8 range, of which Compton fell into (brief-page 15). The Examiner questions the unexpected results, indicating that the improvement to Appellants’ ratio range of 4 to 6 is merely the optimization of Appellants’ original ratio range of 2 to 8, which range was met by Compton via a ratio of 3. We agree with the Examiner that Appellants have optimized their ratio of 4 to 6 from their ratio of 2 to 8. However, we find that Compton’s ratio of 3, falling within the unclaimed range of 2 to 8, does not make the claimed range of -11-11Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007