Appeal No. 2001-2201
Application .09/065, 997
sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 5 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103.
We next address the rejection of independent claim 27 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Appellant’s admitted
prior art in view of Kino or Tanaami. Claim 27 also has a
different scope from independent claims 1 and 5 and recites “an
opaque baffle positioned adjacent the detection aperture.”
Taking a reasonably broad interpretation of the claim, claim 27
requires the baffle to be adjacent or nearby the baffle.
The Examiner states that Kino and Tanaami teach positioning
a baffle adjacent the detection aperture in order to screen out
stray light and thus improve resolution. See Examiner’s Answer,
page 4, lines 3 through 6. Appellant argues that Kino and
Tanaami teach placing the baffle adjacent relay lens or the eye
piece, respectively, and not adjacent the detection aperture.
See Appeal Brief, page 4, lines 16 through 18.
Upon review, we find that Kino and Tanaami teach placing a
baffle adjacent or nearby the detection pinhole. The Examiner
cites Kino and Tanaami only to provide a motivation for one of
ordinary skill in the art to include a baffle behind a detecting
pinhole of a confocal microscope and not to incorporate other
features of the Kino and Tanaami device into the Appellant’s
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