Appeal No. 2000-0703
Application No. 08/490,268
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102
The examiner rejects claims 1 through 6, 8, 10, 13 through
20 and 24 through 26 under this ground of rejection at pages 4
and 5 of the examiner’s answer. The examiner points to Figure 6
of the specification and asserts, (Id. at page 5) that
[t]herefore, it is inherent in the selection process of
various nozzles in the scan operation that are (sic)
topmost nozzle is used as well as other levels of
nozzles which would minimize wear of all the nozzles.
Appellants argue (brief at page 12) that
[t]he conventional printer system of Fig. 6 [of the
specification] using conventional printing instructions
cannot achieve the uniform wear result shown in Fig.
5B. Therefore, Fig. 6 using conventional printing
instructions does not anticipate any of the claims of
the present invention. (emphasis original).
We agree with appellants’ position. For a rejection under 35
U.S.C. § 102, the rejecting reference must show each and every
element of the claim explicitly or implicitly, or it must
inherently possess the elements as claimed. However, in this
instance, the examiner has not shown how Figure 6 of the
disclosure explicitly, implicitly or inherently possesses the
recited characteristics. Therefore, we do not sustain the
anticipation rejection of claims 1 through 6, 8, 10, 13 through
20 and 24 through 26.
9
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007