Appeal No. 1998-1661
Application No. 08/409,244
Hoch, 428 F.2d 1341, 1342 n.3, 166 USPQ 406, 407 n.3 (CCPA
1970).
It appears to us that the examiner’s rationale can only
be based on impermissible hindsight gleaned from a knowledge
of appellants’ invention. The three independent claims 1, 9
and 11 each require, at least, a MOPA laser system wherein a
MO having a Nd-doped gain medium which generates a MO beam
with certain properties and that that MO beam then be input
into the PA of an MOPA laser in order to pass the MO beam
through a Yb-doped gain medium of the PA.
Neither Payne nor Krupke is directed to a MOPA laser and
this is not disputed by the examiner. Of the applied
references, only O’Meara is directed to a MOPA laser and
O’Meara fails to teach an MO with a Nd-doped gain medium
wherein the MO beam is then input into the PA in order to pass
the MO beam through a Yb-doped gain medium of the PA. Merely
because one could, i.e., obvious to try, make the gain medium
of O’Meara’s MO Nd-doped and one could make the gain medium of
O’Meara’s PA Yb-doped, the examiner has not pointed,
persuasively, to anything in the prior art which would have
prompted the skilled artisan to do so. Krupke’s Yb-doped
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