Appeal No. 2003-1551
Application No. 09/550,713
We consider first the rejection of claims 1-3, 5 and 7-10
based on Mitsutake and the admitted prior art. With respect to
independent claims 1, 7 and 9, the examiner finds that Mitsutake
teaches the claimed invention except that Mitsutake does not make
use of a half-wave plate. The examiner notes that the admitted
prior art teaches that half-wave plates were well known in the
art. The examiner finds that it would have been obvious to the
artisan to use a half-wave plate in place of the quarter-wave
plate of Mitsutake [final rejection, page 3, incorporated into
answer at page 3].
With respect to independent apparatus claim 1, appellant
argues that the examiner failed to provide any reasonable
motivation for replacing the quarter-wave plate of Mitsutake with
a half-wave plate. Appellant argues that the examiner’s finding
of obviousness is simply conclusory and is not based on specific
evidence. With respect to independent method claims 7 and 9,
appellant argues that the examiner improperly used the same
reasoning as for apparatus claim 1, and that the examiner failed
to consider claims 7 and 9 as methods [brief, pages 10-16].
The examiner responds by explaining why the artisan would
have been motivated to combine the teachings of Mitsutake with
the admitted prior art [answer, pages 3-5]. Appellant responds
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