Appeal No. 2006-1434
Application No. 10/356,621
Appellants allege, without providing or pointing to evidence in support of the position,
that the artisan would not consider glass to be flexible. However, as the examiner
indicates in the Answer (at 8-9), “flexible” is a relative term. Glass was known to be less
flexible than some materials, more flexible than others, and at least “capable of being
flexed.”
Appellants rely on substantially the same arguments in response to the § 103
rejection of claims 7-18 over Huston, Papadopoulos, and Kimura, adding that Kimura
fails to remedy the alleged deficiencies in the combination of Huston and Papadopoulos.
Instant claim 7, on the basis of which we will decide the appeal with respect to claims
7-18, is similar to instant claim 1 in that the recitation of “embedded in a flexible binder”
does not limit the claimed subject matter. Claim 7 recites, inter alia, a first source
emitting electromagnetic radiation, a second source emitting electromagnetic radiation,
and an optical filter. A storage phosphor is not claimed, nor any substance in which the
phosphor may be embedded. The apparatus that is claimed acts on, and responds to,
radiation regardless of whether or not the storage phosphor is embedded in a flexible
binder. Moreover, as we have discussed supra, we are not persuaded that the
references fail to teach or suggest a storage phosphor embedded in a flexible binder,
even if the relevant claim 7 recitations were to represent actual limitations of the claimed
subject matter.
For the foregoing reasons we are not convinced that any claim on appeal has
been rejected in error. We sustain the rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
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