Appeal No. 2004-1944 Page 7
Application No. 09/255,673
including reaction chambers for containing the deposited
biological fluid samples and thereafter subjects the fluid
samples to other steps including washing and drying.
In rejecting claims 32-36 and 40-47 as being obvious over
Merkh, the examiner asserts that Merkh provides for testing a
fluid sample deposited within a chamber (reaction well labeled
86) and for the quiescent residing of the sample during the
analysis (test). However, the examiner refers to select sections
of the disclosure of Merkh concerned with the apparatus without
addressing the portions of the disclosure of Merkh that relate to
the operation or testing method as relied upon by appellant in
the arguments in the brief. Our review of column 9, lines 50-61
and column 13, lines 38-43 of Merkh, as referred to by the
examiner, reveals that those sections of the applied patent
generally describe the reaction cartridge employed as being one
which includes reaction well portion (86) that contains a test
array (82) and “which is adapted to hold a patient sample and
selected reagents in contact with the test array (82) during a
test” (column 13, lines 41-43). However, the examiner has not
pointed to any teaching of Merkh which indicates that a biologic
fluid sample is quiescently residing in a chamber (well) during
the testing.
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