Appeal No. 1998-0335
Application 08/518,061
restrictions on the number of such plates. Matsuda indicates
that the number of plates can be changed [translation, pages
3-4]. The artisan would not interpret this teaching of
Matsuda as limiting the number of plates to even numbers only
or to odd numbers only. The artisan would have appreciated
that the number of plates could be adjusted as desired.
Therefore, the broad recitation of an odd number of plates
does not patentably distinguish over the teachings of the
applied prior art.
The recitation of first and second plates being
substantially identical in claim 8 does not require that the
prior art teach or suggest the reversibility of plates to
compensate for assembly imperfections. The artisan would have
expected the plurality of plates making up the modified
intermediate electrode of Shimoma to be substantially
identical. Therefore, we also sustain the examiner’s
rejection of claim 8.
Dependent claims 9-11 all include the feature that
“the thickness of the at least one intermediate electrode is
between 30% and 40% of said predetermined [aperture]
diameter.” The examiner’s position is that the claimed
10
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007