Appeal No. 2004-0798
Application No. 09/929,849
The examiner’s position is not well taken. Unlike Rogers,
Murthy teaches a process for making a polymeric nozzle plate for
an ink jet printer. (Column 2, lines 19-32.) Realizing that
Murthy’s process relates to the formation of a nozzle plate and
not a wafer (answer, page 9), the examiner falls back on
Murthy’s disclosure at column 4, lines 1-5 (id. at page 4). As
argued by the appellants (reply brief, pages 2-3), however,
Murthy merely teaches photopatterning the photocurable epoxy
resin to form ink supply channels in the substrate of an ink jet
printhead. Thus, the appellants are correct in asserting that
there is no motivation to combine Murthy with Rogers. While
Murthy does teach that a thin layer of photocurable epoxy resin
enhances the adhesion between the nozzle plate and the substrate
in an ink jet printhead, the examiner does not explain why this
teaching is relevant to the types of methods described in
Rogers, i.e. why the teaching would have led one of ordinary
skill in the art to modify Rogers’s method of forming conductive
vias on a substrate.
Because all five rejections are based on the same
problematic combination of Murthy and Rogers and none of the
other references cures this basic deficiency, we cannot affirm
any of the rejections.
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