Appeal No. 2000-0335
Application No. 08/780,551 Page 10
Here, the examiner has failed to establish any teaching or
suggestion in Fujii, or any convincing line of reasoning that
would suggest equivalency between the claimed electrode structure
and the electrode structure of Fujii. From all of the above, we
find that the examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case
of obviousness of independent claims 1 and 7, as well as
dependent claims 5, 10, and 21-24. Accordingly, the rejection of
claims 1, 5, 7, 10, and 21-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
We turn next to independent claim 13. The examiner's
position (final rejection, page 4) is that although Fujii does
not specifically disclose that a "toner cloud" forms between the
first and third electrodes, Fujii discloses in figure 3 how the
toner is transferred from first electrode 7 to third electrode 1.
According to the examiner, toner 11 "appears with reasonable
certainty to be forming a 'cloud' between the electrodes," and
that it therefore would have been obvious to utilize a toner
cloud between the electrodes of Fujii. The examiner additionally
asserts (answer, page 4) that toner 11b in figures 5A and 5B is
shown as a cloud. Further, the examiner relies upon a dictionary
definition of a cloud as "an aggregate of charged particles," but
recognizes that not all aggregates of charged particles form a
cloud.
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