Appeal No. 2001-1570
Application No. 09/081,393
Turning now to the 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection of the
claims, we note that Appellant states his intention that claims
1-8, 10-12, 14-17 and 21-30 be grouped together so that they
stand and fall together (brief, page 10). Accordingly, we will
consider the claims as one group and will limit our consideration
to independent claim 1 as the representative claim of the group.
To rebut the 35 U.S.C. § 102 rejection of the claims, the
focus of Appellant’s arguments is that Boutaghou does not
disclose monomorphs constructed from a metal sheet having two
bent up tabs with attached piezoelectric elements (brief, page
12). Additionally, Appellant points out that the claimed “bent
tabs” and “bent-up tabs” are different from tabs 47 of Boutaghou,
which are “bent” only when the piezoelectric elements are
energized (id.).
The Examiner responds to Appellant’s arguments by relying on
the disclosure of Boutaghou stating “PZT elements 44 preferably
should be bi-morph in nature” (column 6, line 14) and concludes
that the reference does not preclude using monomorphs since both
bi-morphs and monomorphs are well known (answer, page 5).
Additionally, the Examiner asserts that each piezoelectric
element 44 on the sides of tab 47 of Boutaghou can be considered
a monomorph structure (id.). The Examiner further argues that
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