Appeal No. 2001-2201
Application .09/065, 997
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
Appellant’s admitted prior art in view of Kino and Tanaami.
Claim 5 has a different scope from claim 1 and recites that the
baffle is “placed in a location selected from the group
consisting of (a) in front of, (b) behind, and (c) both in front
and behind said detecting pinhole . . ., wherein the position of
said baffles relative to the pinhole is adjustable in all
dimensions for alignment.” As stated above and as Appellant
admits, the baffle taught by Kino and Tanaami are located behind
the detecting pinhole.
Appellant argues, however, that the baffles in Kino and
Tanaami function to prevent stray light from reaching the
detector and not “to block out-of-focus light and improve z-axis
resolution” as recited in claim 5. See Appeal Brief, page 4,
line 21 through page 5, line 7 and page 5, line 20 through page
6, line 6. Appellant also states that the out-of-focus light
recited in the claims originates “from the specimen and not the
disk” and does not improve z-axis resolution. See Reply Brief,
page 1, lines 19 through 23. Lastly, Appellant argues that no
extrinsic evidence has been provided to demonstrate that the
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