Appeal No. 03-0877 Page 6
Application No. 09/601,884
claim 9. In this regard, they point out that the examiner has not provided evidence that
the air duct defined by the skin and the element designated as the “base member”
would have been considered by one of ordinary skill in the art to be a “micro channel,”
contending that “micro channel” has particular meaning in the art and is defined in such
a manner in their specification, and that the channel in the reference does not meet this
definition. They also urge that the reference does not describe one portion of this
passage as a channel and another as a plenum, and therefore the examiner has no
basis upon which to label portions in this manner. Finally, the appellants argue that the
so-called “base member” does not “include” a plenum chamber, as is required by the
claim. We agree with the appellants that these factors also cause claim 9 not to be
anticipated by Parikh.
The rejection of claim 9 is not sustained.
Independent claim 14, which also stands rejected as being anticipated by Parikh,
also contains the limitations discussed above. This being the case, on the basis of the
same reasoning, the rejection of claim 14, as well as dependent claims 7, 12, 13, 15
and 18, cannot be sustained.
The Rejections Under Section 103
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would
have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See, for example, In re Keller,
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