Appeal No. 2004-0680
Application No. 10/057,026
does not respond to the limitation in claim 11 calling for the
manifold to be “funnel-shaped.”
Taub discloses a thermal ink-jet printhead 13 comprising a
plurality of drop ejection chambers 15 in communication with a
common ink fill slot 18, i.e., a manifold, formed in a silicon
wafer 12. As shown in Figures 4c-4f, the ink fill slot has a
tapered pyramidal shape, i.e., a funnel-shape (see column 5,
lines 26 through 30). Taub teaches that such ink fill slot is
capable of being precisely manufactured in terms of its geometry
and alignment (see column 2, lines 22 through 24; and column 4,
lines 23 through 28) and has a configuration which provides the
requisite volume of ink at increasingly higher frequencies of
operation (see column 2, lines 25 through 28).
In proposing to combine Leban and Taub to reject claim 11,
the examiner concludes that it would have been obvious at the
time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in
the art “to have provided Leban with a funnel shaped manifold for
the purpose of adequately responding to ink volume demands, as
taught by Taub” (answer, page 5).
The appellants counter that this conclusion is unsound,
essentially because “none of the two references, either
singularly or in combination thereof, teaches a funnel-shaped
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007