Appeal No. 2002-0964
Application 09/000,850
components have been placed by the first nozzle. However, Terai
is considered as suggestive of using a stocker 8 with two or more
compartments. For the plurality of nozzle compartments
consisting of two compartments, the next nozzle to be selected by
Terai is always in an adjacent compartment of the nozzle stocker.
Consequently, Terai anticipates at least one embodiment within
the scope of appellants’ claims 7, 8, 11-13, 22, 23, 26 and 30.
These claims require a plurality. Two is a plurality and it is
considered as within the scope of Terai’s disclosure. For claims
10 and 25 note that if there are only two compartments, the
compartments store the nozzles in sequence of use.
However, we do not affirm the obviousness rejection of the
following claims: claims 9, 14-21, 24, 27, 28 and 29. As to
claims 14-21, 27, 28 and 29, we are in agreement with appellants
that while Sakurai discloses multiple movable heads, it does not
teach multiple nozzles for each of the multiple heads.
Pursuant to our authority under 37 CFR § 1.196(b) we enter
the following rejection. Claims 26, 29 and 30 are rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as indefinite. These claims
contemplate a nozzle stocker with a plurality of compartments.
These compartments are designated compartments 1, 2, ..., n.
However, when the nth compartment is n=1, which is clearly a
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