Appeal No. 2000-0038
Application 08/751,369
additional materials, as argued by the appellants (brief,
page 18), is irrelevant.
Claim 29
The appellants argue that Heming does not disclose or
suggest selecting a waveguide layer from group (a) in the
appellants’ claim 28 for guiding light having a 400-1000 nm
wavelength (brief, page 18). As discussed above regarding
claim 28, Heming discloses waveguide layer materials which are
among those in group (a) of the appellants’ claim 28. Heming’s
materials and those of the appellants which have the same
composition necessarily are capable of passing light of the same
wavelengths. Thus, the capability of the waveguide layer
material required by claim 29 does not serve to distinguish over
Heming the claimed process for making the waveguide.
Claim 33
The appellants acknowledge that Heming’s intermediate layer
thickness of 10-5,000 nm falls within the scope of at least 5 nm
recited in the appellants’ claim 33, but argue that this
thickness is not disclosed in combination with a waveguide layer
deposited by reactive sputtering (page 19). Heming’s disclosed
intermediate layer thickness, however, is not limited to an
intermediate layer in combination with a waveguide layer formed
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