Appeal No. 2001-0769
Application No. 09/237,791
The examiner finds that Goodman teaches placing a substrate fixture at an oblique angle to
the exit port of a vapor generator.1 See the Answer, page 4. However, we only observe that
Goodman teaches employing a rotating circular substrate fixture in which the substrates attached
thereon can be facing during one point of the rotation at an oblique angle to the exit port of a vapor
generator. See Goodman, column 2, lines 58-64 and column 3, lines 40-64, together with
Goodman, Figure 1. We find nothing in Goodman teaching or suggesting the placement of the
substrate fixture itself at an oblique angle to the exit port of a vapor generator. See Goodman in its
entirety. Nor do we find anything in Goodman that recognizes the advantage of placing a substrate
fixture at an oblique angle to the exit port of a vapor generator. Id.
Under these circumstances, we concur with the appellants that the examiner has not
established a prima facie case of obviousness regarding the claimed subject matter. Accordingly,
we are constrained to reverse the examiner’s decision rejecting claims 30 through 39 and 41 under
35 U.S.C. § 103.
1 The examiner does not rely on the remaining applied prior art references for teaching
this claimed feature.
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