Appeal No. 2003-2056 Page 6
Application No. 09/377,442
obviousness with regard to the subject matter of claim 1, and the rejection cannot be
sustained.
In addition, we do not agree with the examiner that the heat pipes on the
Esposto radiator panels comprise a “matrix,” the common applicable definition of which
is a rectangular arrangement of elements in rows and columns.2 The Esposto heat
pipes are arranged in a serpentine fashion, and while the corners are squared the pipes
do not cross, and we agree with the appellants that they thus are not arranged in rows
and columns, which would require that they cross. This shortcoming also causes the
rejection of claim 1 to be fatally defective.
In view of the foregoing, the rejection of independent claim 1 and dependent
claims 2-12 and 14 is not sustained.
The appellants provided additional arguments directed to claims 4 and 9, which
depend from claim 1. With regard to claim 4, the crossing heat pipes in Esposto do not
“extend around the outside of each of the respective radiator panels,” as is required by
this claim nor, it follows, could they thus be “thermally coupled” to the header heat
pipes. Dependent claim 9 requires the presence of “a bonded joint interface . . . formed
at intersections between the lateral and header heat pipes,” a feature that is not present
in either reference.
2See, for example, Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, 1996, page 717.
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