Appeal No. 1999-1190
Application 08/481,367
Consequently, we conclude that the examiner has not
carried the burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness of the invention recited in any of the appellants’
claims over JP ‘200.
Rejection over Wu in view of EPA ‘646
Wu discloses a method for cleaning a metal surface with a
laser beam to improve the contact properties of the surface,
wherein the power density of the laser is controlled to
vaporize surface contaminants and embedded foreign materials
without significantly altering the properties of the metal
(abstract; col. 2, lines 64-66; col. 3, lines 6-11).
The examiner relies (office action mailed on March 11,
1996, paper no. 5, page 5) upon EPA ‘646 only for a teaching
of suctioning away radioactive waste which has been removed
from a surface by a laser (page 8, lines 16-22).
The examiner argues that Wu’s teaching that the
properties of the metal are not significantly altered by the
laser indicates that there is minimal alteration, and that
such minimal alteration is all that the appellants’ claims
require (answer, page 6). The examiner, however, has not
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