Appeal No. 2001-0107
Application No. 09/143,505
Kondo is silent as to the disposition of the exposure mask
relative to such a chamber. In sum, there is no teaching in
Kondo that we may rely on to support a suggestion of where to
position the exposure mask in the system disclosed by Noguchi.
As for Noguchi, we have observed supra that Noguchi does
teach the use of a reticle as part of the optical delivery system
to expose the substrate to a pattern of light. The examiner has
directed our attention to no teaching in Noguchi, however, that a
reticle or exposure mask may be advantageously positioned inside
the sample chamber. The examiner has not established any other
facts in the record in support of placing an exposure mask inside
the sample chamber provided by Noguchi. Accordingly, we are
constrained to reverse the rejection for lack of an adequate
evidentiary basis for the proposed modification.
It seems to us that when a reference provides a way of
achieving a certain result, but mentions no other, then, to
establish that one of ordinary skill in the art would have
recognized that some other way might also be used, a proper
rejection must cite some teaching in the prior art in support of
that other way. Appeal to “common knowledge” of a property of a
material or of the behavior of a system may establish the
“reasonableness” of a proposed modification: but proof of
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