Appeal No. 1998-2813
Application No. 08/463,203
Claims 21, 22/21, 23 through 25, 32/21 and 36/21 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Fink.
Independent claim 21 is similar to claim 20 discussed above and
for the same reasons as we noted with regard to claim 20 it is
our opinion that the examiner has failed to establish a prima
facie case of obviousness with regard to appellants' claim 21.
We have no reason to conclude that the matrix of the device
formed by appellants' method in claim 21 and that formed in the
process noted above in Fink are "substantially identical" one to
the other, and the examiner has provided no reasons which support
or mandate such a conclusion. In our view, the polymer/solvent
bonding of polymeric powders in appellants' method (claim 21) and
the laser photo polymerization suggested in Fink will result in
devices with matrix structures that are clearly different from
one another. Thus, the examiner's rejection of claim 21 and all
of the claims which depend therefrom will not be sustained.
This leaves the examiner's § 103 rejection of claims 23
through 25 as they depend from claim 19 for our consideration.
In this instance, appellants have argued (brief, page 13) that
Fink does not teach or suggest devices as set forth in these
claims including a matrix that has walls that are 100 microns
thick (claim 23), or devices including a matrix formed of the
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