Appeal No. 2000-1103
Application No. 08/576,367
the reasons set forth below, we will sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 31 and reverse
the rejection of all other claims.
DISCUSSION
I.
The Examiner has rejected all of the process claims 18 to 30 over the Wuensch
reference in combination with, inter alia, the Milinkovic, Koseki and Reichert references. A
principal question in all of these rejections is whether the Examiner has established that the
process described in Wuensch when combined with the other references renders the claimed
process obvious. We answer this question in the negative.
Claim 18 is directed to a process for the production of a microstructured element,
comprising the steps of forming a microstructure of a microstructured mold having an open
cavity on one surface thereof wherein the mold consists essentially of ceramic, glass, stone,
quartz, gallium arsenide or germanium mixture thereof. Wuensch discloses a process for the
production of microstructures from a microstructured mold having an open cavity on one
surface. The Examiner acknowledges the claimed process differs from the process of
Wuensch because of the material from which the mold is formed. (Answer, pp. 5-6). To
remedy this deficiency the Examiner relies on several other references to illustrate that
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