Appeal No. 2000-1862
Application 08/834,061
37. A calibration medium for an optical instrument, which optical instrument has a spectral light
source, said light source capable of emitting light in the far UV range which light travels along a
light path and which light comprises at least one wavelength, means for receiving sample within
said light path, and a sensor assembly for receiving light and producing a signal, said sensor
assembly producing a signal upon receiving light having said wavelength; comprising:
a sol-gel glass monolith, said sol-gel glass monolith capable of assuming a position
within said light path, said sol-gel glass monolith having a rare-earth dopant therein said
constituents of the sol-gel glass monolith constituents comprising selected so the rare earth-
doped sol-gel glass monolith exhibits a transmittance in the far UV range so at least one spectral
feature of the rare-earth dopant in the far UV range is discernable and corresponds to a control
value to allow the sensor assembly receiving light having a wavelength corresponding to the
control value to be calibrated.
The appealed claims, as represented by claim 37, are drawn to a calibration medium for
an optical instrument of the type having the components recited in the claim, including a spectral
light source capable of emitting light in the “far UV range,” which comprises at least a rare earth-
doped sol-gel glass monolith capable of assuming a position within the light path of such an
optical instrument, and having constituents comprising at least those selected such that at least
one spectral feature of the rare earth dopant in the “far UV range” is discernable and can be used
as a control value to calibrate the optical instrument. Appellant characterizes optical instruments
having the components recited in the claim as “UV absorbance detectors” (specification, e.g.,
pages 7 and 28-29).
The references relied on by the examiner are:
X. Orignac et. al. (Orignac) “Fabrication and charaterization of sol-gel planar waveguides doped
with rare-earth ions,” 69 Appl. Phys. Lett., No. 7, 895-97 (12 August 1996).
W. Xu et al. (Xu) “Effect of curing temperature on green light emission from ER3+-doped sol-gel
silica glass,” 194 Journal of Non-crystalline Solids 235-40 (1996).
The examiner has rejected appealed claims 2 through 15 and under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) as
being anticipated by Orignac.3 The examiner has also rejected appealed claims 2 through 4, 6,
2 Claim 37 was presented in the amendment of September 1, 1998 (Paper No. 4) and has not
been amended. Appealed claims 2 through 15, original and as amended, appear on pages 30-32
of the specification. As pointed out by the examiner (answer, page 3), appellant has misnumbered
the claims in the appendix to the brief.
3 The statutory provision cited by the examiner is 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) (1975) which applies
where the evidence of anticipation is a United States patent granted on an application filed by
another before the claimed invention was made by the applicant, that is, the effective filing date
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