Appeal No. 2000-0038
Application 08/751,369
as recited in claim 27. Thus, we consider “substantially lower”
to be lower by any considerable amount or degree.2 It reasonably
appears, considering that Heming’s glassy SiO2 intermediate layer
material is among the intermediate layer materials used by the
appellants (specification, page 8, line 12), and that Heming’s
polycarbonate, polymethylmethacrylate, PVC and polyester
substrate materials (col. 4, lines 5-7 and 52) are substrate
materials exemplified by the appellants (specification, page 8,
lines 3-5),3 that Heming’s SiO2 intermediate layer, like that of
the appellants, has a propagation attenuation which is lower to a
considerable degree than that of the synthetic resin substrate
materials.
Claim 28
Heming discloses that the waveguide layer preferably can be
made of TiO2, TiO2-SiO2, ZnO2, Nb2O5, Si3N4 or HfO2 (col. 6,
lines 12-14), all of which are recited in the appellants’
claim 28. The fact that the appellants’ claim 28 recites
2 See Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary 1155
(Riverside 1984).
3 The appellants exemplify a particular polyester, i.e.,
polyethylene terephthalate (PET) (specification, page 8, lines 3-
5).
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