Appeal No. 2004-1065
Application No. 09/883,804
single-piece unitary structure. As discussed above, Litt
suggests the feature of a single-piece unitary body. The
examiner relies upon Thorne for teaching shapes of wells, such
as flat, hemispherical, conical, or a combination thereof, and
for teaching that certain shapes of wells are considered
equivalent to each other. Answer, page 4.
With regard to the rejection of claim 33, which
additionally involves the reference of Kessler, although we
stated that we only need consider claim 32 in this appeal, we do
make the following comments. Claim 33 requires that each of the
openings in the principle surface of the plate is surrounded by
an annular ridge. At the bottom of page 6 of the brief,
appellant refers to the same arguments used in connection with
the first rejection in that there is no motivation to combine
Litt with Cooke or Thorne. We disagree for the reasons
discussed above. Appellant also states “there would be no
motivation to further apply the Kessler reference.” Brief, page
6.
On page 8 of the answer, the examiner states that Kessler
teaches wells having curved bottoms and shows an annular ridge
surrounding each of the wells. Appellant does not dispute these
findings made by the examiner.
In view of the above, we therefore affirm each of the
rejections.
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