Appeal No. 1998-1661
Application No. 08/409,244
We now turn to the rejection of claims 1, 2 and 5 through
13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
We will not sustain this rejection either as, in our
view, the examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case
of obviousness.
The examiner applies O’Meara for the teaching of a MOPA
laser system and relies on Payne for a teaching of Yb- and Nd-
doped laser crystals. Krupke is relied on for certain Yb-
doped crystals. The examiner concludes that since it is well
known that the only necessary and sufficient condition for
pumping an active medium is that the active medium be
optically matched to the pump, it would have been obvious from
the structures and teachings of the references to pump each of
the crystals and that “one desiring to negate the spatial
thermal differences of the solid gain amplifier medium would
clearly use the Nd-doped crystal combinations of Payne...to
pass the MO beam to the Yb-doped gain medium of Krupke...in a
device built around the teachings of O’Meara” [final rejection
page-5]. The examiner also appears to rely on a reference to
Abrams but this reference forms no part of the instant grounds
for rejection and so we will not consider Abrams. See In re
-9-
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