Appeal No. 2005-0510
Application No. 09/883,435
54 under section 103(a) over Kim essentially for the reasons stated
in the Answer and those reasons set forth below. We reverse the
rejection of claims 27-29, 36 and 38 under section 103(a) over Kim
for reasons which follow. Accordingly, the decision of the
examiner is affirmed-in-part.
OPINION
The examiner finds that Kim discloses a crystallization tray
housing where each tray has a plurality of separate crystallization
units, with each unit consisting of a reservoir, a drop chamber
with a shoulder for placement of a cover slip, and a cover slip
from which a drop solution for crystal growth can be suspended
(Answer, page 3). The examiner also finds that Kim teaches
optimization of the geometry of the drop chamber (id., citing col.
6, ll. 8-24). From these findings, the examiner concludes that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art at the
time of appellants’ invention to design the reaction vessel with
respect to size and shape of the recesses and reaction areas, as
well as the number of reaction areas in the vessel (Answer, page
4).
Appellants argue that Kim discloses that each drop chamber 32
is outside the central reservoir 28, and the central reaction
3
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