Appeal No. 1998-2011
Application No. 08/707,267
reference. The German reference does not explicitly specify the ratio of the spacing between
corrugations to the depth thereof. As illustrated in Figure 1, the corrugation pitch or spacing
appears to be much larger than one-fifth, and in fact approximately the same as, the depth of
the corrugations. The examiner, in rejecting the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, has not
addressed this feature, much less articulated any rationale as to why it is met by the German
reference or why one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to modify the
heater of the German reference to arrive at the claimed ratio.
Accordingly, we reverse the examiner's rejection of claim 1, and claims 7 and 9 which
depend therefrom, as being unpatentable over the German reference in view of Bauchert.
The above-noted deficiencies in the combination of the German reference and Bauchert with
respect to the subject matter recited in claim 1 find no cure in the various references applied to support
the obviousness rejections of the claims which depend therefrom. Therefore, we also reverse the
examiner's rejections of claim 2 as being unpatentable over the German reference in view of
Bauchert and Schwarzkopf or Harpster, of claim 3 as being unpatentable over the German
reference in view of Bauchert and Churchill, and of claims 10 and 11 as being unpatentable
over the German reference in view of Bauchert, Fessenden and Porzky.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 1-3, 7 and 9-11 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed. New rejections of these claims under the first (written
11
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