Appeal No. 2004-0612
Application No. 09/531,660
same function of [a] collimator which [is] reducing or
eliminating non-uniform extraction angled beam” (answer, page 7).
The unwanted and scattered X-rays referred to by the examiner are
secondary X-rays which emanate from the specimen container (8)
which holds the specimen (2) (figure 1) (col. 6, lines 29-31).
The examiner has not provided evidence or reasoning which shows
that blocking unwanted and scattered fluorescent X-rays emanating
from a specimen container is the same as reducing a non-uniform
extraction angle of secondary X-rays emanating from the specimen.
The appellants do not define “collimator” in their
specification. Hence, we give this term its ordinary and
customary meaning, see Allen Engineering Corp. v. Bartell
Industries Inc., 299 F.3d 1336, 1344, 63 USPQ2d 1769, 1772 (Fed.
Cir. 2002), which is “[a] device capable of collimating
radiation, as a long narrow tube in which strongly absorbing or
reflecting walls permit only radiation traveling parallel to the
tube axis to traverse the entire length.”2
The examiner has not provided evidence or reasoning which
shows that Kuwabara’s view restricting screen, which blocks
unwanted and scattered secondary X-rays from the specimen
2 Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary 281
(Riverside 1984). A copy of this definition is provided to the
appellant with this decision.
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