Appeal No. 2005-0584
Application No. 09/745,414 Page 4
initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of anticipation
of the claimed invention.
Concerning this matter, we note, for example, that
appellants’ claimed inlet and outlet are part of an arrangement
useful for inserting a preform into a fiber drawing furnace. The
examiner asserts that “the top of Nicholson’s 8 is an inlet”
corresponding to appellants’ claimed inlet (answer, page 5). As
correctly explained by appellants (reply brief, pages 4 and 5),
the element labeled with reference numeral (8) in drawing figure
1 of Nicholson is a vacuum feed-through that permits vertical
movement of a shaft (7) of the induction-heated furnace disclosed
in the reference. The examiner has not established that an
opening exists between the shaft (7) and vacuum-feed through (8)
of Nicholson or that Nicholson discloses removing the shaft and
leaving the feed through (8) open while furnace A is attached to
furnace B and chamber C. Nicholson further provides that section
A of the furnace is loaded/unloaded of a soot body through the
lower end thereof, not through the vacuum feed-through. See
column 10, lines 14-17 and drawing figure 2 of Nicholson.
Consequently, while the examiner asserts that element (8) of
Nicholson corresponds to appellants’ claimed inlet that permits
conveying a preform body therethrough, the examiner has not
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