Appeal No. 1997-2566
Application No. 08/330,642
has a plurality of needle-shaped protrusions extending
therefrom. The method entails drawing the membrane over the
scintillator surface such that it is conformingly disposed and
in intimate contact around each of the needle-shaped
protrusions. According to appellants, the conventional, prior
art processes of applying a reflective material to the surface
of a scintillator results in a distortion of the needle
structure, "causing light traveling through the structure to
strike the interior surface boundaries of the needle many
thousand more times before the light emerges from the
scintillator into the detector array" (page 2 of
specification, lines 16-19). Deformation of the needle
structure results in degraded imager performance.
Appealed claims 1, 3, 8 and 9 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kwasnick in view of
Galves and Muller. Claim 4 stands rejected under § 103 as
being unpatentable over the stated combination of references
in further view of Bond and Choinski, whereas claims 5-7 stand
rejected under § 103 as being unpatentable over the stated
combination of references further in view of Bennett. In
addition, claims 10 and 11 stand rejected under § 103 as being
-3-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007