Appeal No. 2001-0713
Application 09/016,304
We now consider the rejection of claims 5 and 7 based on
Sugishita taken alone. The examiner’s rejection indicates that
Sugishita does not disclose that the piezoelectric ceramic plate
is square, that adjacent electrodes are exposed at different
sides, that the device has a disk shape, or what mode the
transformer is driven in [answer, page 7]. The examiner
dismisses these differences by relying on per se rules of
obviousness, by relying on official notice, and by simply stating
that the differences between the claimed invention and the prior
art would have been obvious to the artisan [id., pages 7-8].
Appellant basically argues that Sugishita suffers the
same deficiencies as Ogawa and makes the same arguments that we
considered above. Since we agree with appellant that the issues
with respect to this rejection are the same as the issues with
respect to the rejection based on Ogawa, we will not sustain the
rejection of claims 5 and 7. With respect to the rejection of
dependent claims 6 and 8 based on Sugishita and Clawson, since
Clawson does not overcome the deficiencies of Sugishita discussed
above, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 6 and 8.
-10-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007