Appeal No. 2005-0805
Application No. 10/234,097
Consequently, based on the state of the art, we are convinced
that the examiner has properly concluded that it would have been
obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to use a baked
stainless steel electrode in a mass spectrometer and to
recondition the stainless steel electrode by baking in order to
remove contaminating gaseous components thereon.
Appellants maintain that “Redmond does not disclose or
suggest that stainless steel can be used as the electrode and the
trap electrode for the ion source of the mass spectrometer” (page
5 of brief, second paragraph). However, as noted by the
examiner, the use of a stainless electrode in a mass spectrometer
is acknowledged in the admitted prior art, and appellants have
advanced no rationale why one of ordinary skill in the art would
not have applied the teachings of Redmond to the stainless steel
electrode of a mass spectrometer. While appellants state that
Redmond “does not specifically disclose that the electrode made
of stainless steel is baked at a temperature in range of 200oC to
700oC in an air atmosphere”, the baking temperatures disclosed by
Redmond fall within the claimed range, e.g., 370oC. Also, as
explained by the examiner, it would have been obvious for one of
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