Appeal No. 2005-1257
Application No. 10/179,570
There is no dispute that Maracas, like appellants, discloses
the presently claimed method of producing a nanofeature on a
substrate by soaking a stamp having a nanopattern thereon in an
ink solution and applying the inked surface of the stamp against
a substrate to transfer an ink pattern onto the substrate. As
recognized by the examiner, Maracas is silent with respect to
whether ink within the stamp replenishes the surface of the stamp
after the ink transfer onto the substrate. However, we agree
with the examiner's analysis that Everhart and Lochhead provide
sufficient evidence in support of the reasonable conclusion that
the ten-minute soaking in the inking solution disclosed by
Maracas would result in enough ink in the stamp of Maracas to
replenish the surface after transfer.
It is well settled that when a claimed process reasonably
appears to be substantially the same as a process disclosed by
the prior art, the burden is on the applicant to prove that the
prior art process does not necessarily or inherently possess
characteristics attributed to the claimed process. In re Spada,
911 F.2d 705, 708, 15 USPQ2d 1655, 1658 (Fed. Cir. 1990); In re
Best, 562 F.2d 1252, 1255, 195 USPQ 430, 433 (CCPA 1977). In the
present case, the stamps of both appellants and Maracas are made
of the same material, poly(dimethylsiloxane), and appellants'
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