Appeal No. 2006-0103 Page 4
Application No. 10/172,892
“form-in-place gasket.” As defined by the specification (page 8), a form-in-place gasket
is one that is formed by depositing a fluid gasket material on a surface and allowing the
gasket material to cure (pages 17-18).
Claim 10 adds the limitation that the target solution is placed into a well on either
the substrate or cover, and then the other plate is placed over the well to form the assay
chamber.
Claim 17 is similar to claim 1 but adds the express product-by-process limitation
that “the form-in-place gasket [is] formed by a process comprising depositing a fluid
gasket material on one or more of the substrate and the cover and curing the fluid gasket
material.”
2. Anticipation by Chen
The examiner rejected claims 1-13, 16, and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as
anticipated by Chen.1 Chen discloses a “hybridization assembly compris[ing] a reaction
chamber (or hybridization chamber) to confine and allow interaction or binding of a target
liquid to an array of probes deposited on an inner surface of the reaction chamber. The
hybridization assembly may comprise a substrate slide, a gasket layer and/or a middle
slide, and a cover slip.” Page 1, paragraph [0156]. Chen teaches that the “gasket layer
may be attached to the surface of the middle slide that contacts the substrate to serve as
a seal. . . . This gasket layer should ideally be made of softer and hydrophobic material
such as silicone rubber, polytetrafluoroethylene, Teflon®, or polydimethylsiloxane
1 Chen et al., U.S. Publication No. 2003/0087292, published May 8, 2003 (application filed Oct. 4, 2002
and claiming priority to Oct. 4, 2001). The examiner also rejected claims 1-13, 16, and 17 as anticipated
by Sandstrom (U.S. Patent 6,545,758, issued April 8, 2003 on an application filed Oct. 5, 2000). Since we
conclude that these claims are anticipated by Chen, we need not reach the rejection based on Sandstrom.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007