Appeal No. 2005-2077
Application No. 10/046,564
Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Henderson in
view of Miyazaki and further in view of Hatch.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the Examiner and the
Appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the Answer (mailed
October 19, 2004) for the Examiner’s reasoning in support of the rejections, and to the
Brief (filed September 2, 2004) for Appellants’ arguments thereagainst. We affirm the
Examiner’s § 103 rejections. Our reasons follow.
OPINION
Claims 1, 5, and 7 to 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
Henderson in view of Miyazaki. We select claim 1 as representative of the rejected claims.
The Examiner asserts Henderson describes a micro-fabricated chromatographic
system that differs from the claimed invention in the presence of a particular micro pump.
(Answer, page 3). The Examiner relies upon the Miyazaki reference for teaching a suitable
micro pump. The Examiner determined (Answer, page 4) that the micro pump of Miyazaki
operates through an evaporation operating mechanism. Miyazaki discloses, columns 3 and
4, various methods for evaporating a liquid to operate the pump. The Examiner also
determined that the micro pump of Miyazaki has the advantage of being compact and does
not pulsate the flow. (Answer, page 4). The Examiner concluded that it would have been
obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to employ a known micro pump, such as
disclosed by Miyazaki, in the system of Henderson. We agree.
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