Appeal No. 2000-1003
Application No. 08/631,465
patentably distinct with respect to the applied prior art for
reasons previously explained. That is, claims 26, 28 and 31 are
patentable over the applied prior art for at least the reason
that they include the patentably-distinguishing features of the
parent claims from which they depend.
We also will not sustain this rejection as applied to claims
9-11, 14 and 19. As correctly argued by the appellants,
Shiraishi contains no teaching or suggestion of a collimator
having the opposite polarity capability required by these claims.
In response to this argument by the appellants, the examiner
contends that “the collimators [of Shiraishi] have variable dc
sources so that polarities could be set at desired values”
(answer, page 16). The Shiraishi reference contains no
disclosure which supports the examiner’s contention. The mere
fact that Shiraishi’s control plates are connected to variable
electric sources (see page 4 of the translation) does not, by
itself, support the examiner’s aforequoted conclusion that the
polarities could be set at desired values. For all we know, the
variable electric sources of Shiraishi would permit variation
only with respect to the same polarity rather than opposite
polarities as required by the claims under review. It is
apparent that the examiner’s polarity conclusion is based on
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