Appeal No. 2006-0216
Application No. 10/325,203
The § 102 Rejections
For the reasons more fully explained in the answer, each of the Holland and Collins
references anticipatorily satisfies the energizing, varying and controlling steps recited in
appealed independent claims 22, 30, 38 and 41. The appellants’ arguments to the
contrary simply are not compatible with the disclosures of these references. For example,
see Holland at lines 52-65 in col. 7, lines 54-62 in col. 8, lines 20-30 and lines 43-49 in col.
9, and lines 11-20 in col. 10 as well as Collins at lines 1-12 in col. 8, lines 49-67 in col. 12,
lines 11-20 in col. 13 and line 44 in col. 17 through line 16 in col. 18.
Particularly in the reply brief, the appellants seem to implicitly acknowledge that the
reference methods include adjustments of the type under consideration in order to obtain a
plasma which is uniform (e.g., see the last sentence in the abstract of Holland) or
optimized (e.g., see lines 10-11 in col. 18 of Collins). Nevertheless, the appellants argue
that, after this adjustment has been made and the desired plasma has been obtained, “no
further adjustment would be necessary” (reply brief, page 3). This argument is irrelevant
independent claims 22, 30, 38 and 41 for the § 102 rejections and dependent claims 40 and 44 for the §
103 rejections.
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007