Appeal No. 2002-2249
Application 09/340,441
specified power is applied, and not the total time that can be taken to perform the single coating
step in its entirety. Furthermore, we interpret the terms “a surface” in the preamble and “at least
one surface” in the body of the claim to include coating of any portion of a surface of an
implantable device. Appealed claim 5 requires that the method of appealed claim 1 include an
inert gas with the monomer in the single coating step and appealed claim 15 requires that the
method of appealed claim 1 include adding a bio-active compound to the coated surface.
Appealed claims 18 through 20 are styled in product-by-process format and thus are product
claims. See generally, In re Thorpe, 777 F.2d 695, 697, 227 USPQ 964, 966 (Fed. Cir. 1985).
Turning now to the grounds of rejection under § 102(b), it is well settled that the
examiner has the burden of making out a prima facie case of anticipation in the first instance by
pointing out where each and every element of the claimed invention, arranged as required by the
claim, is described identically in the reference, either expressly or under the principles of
inherency. See generally, In re Spada, 911 F.2d 705, 708, 15 USPQ2d 1655, 1657 (Fed. Cir.
1990); In re King, 801 F.2d 1324, 1326, 231 USPQ 136, 138 (Fed. Cir. 1986). We must agree
with appellants that the examiner has not established a prima facie case of anticipation with
respect to appealed claim 1. We find that Loh discloses that in the glow discharge
polymerization coating step of the two coating step process disclosed therein,
[t]he plasma polymerization process continues until the desired polymer coating
thickness has been obtained. During the last few minutes of the plasma process, the
power level to the polymerization chamber 20 is gradually reduced so that the
crosslinking density of the polymer coating decreases. The plasma is allowed to self-
extinguish, whereupon the power and the gas flow are shut off. [Col. 8, lines 54-61.]
Thus, Loh teaches that the radio frequency power used to create glow discharge of the reactant
monomer is gradually reduced during the last few minutes of the glow discharge polymerization
coating step until the plasma self-extinguishes. Applying this teaching to Loh Example 1, it is
apparent that the single glow discharge polymerization coating step includes the total time that
the radio frequency power is continually applied, that is, at 80 watts for ten minutes, and then
reduced in a linear manner from 80 to 0 watts for 5 minutes, the latter being the plasma self-
extinguishing period (col. 9, line 56, to col. 10, line 1).
2 The rejected claims and claims 6 and 9 are all of the claims pending in the application. See the
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