Appeal 2006-1578
Application 09/520,032
teachings supporting the Examiner’s position. Indeed, we fail to find any
basis in Pieper which establishes that one of ordinary skill in this art would
have reasonably interpreted the plural instances of the teaching that the
cavity cavities arrayed in the tool can have “at least one . . . shape” to mean
that the cavities can have only one geometric shape instead of the literal
meaning in context that more than one shape can be employed in the cavity
arrays.
We are not convinced otherwise by Appellants’ argument that the
teachings and objectives of consistent and uniform arrays of cavities taught
by Pieper exclude geometrically different cavities. This is because one of
ordinary skill in this art would have reasonably found in the teachings of
Pieper the direction that the use of more than one geometric cavity in the
array will achieve the stated objectives as long as pattern of the different
geometric cavities is non-random, consistent and uniform. In this respect, it
is well settled that a reference stands for all of the specific teachings thereof
as well as the inferences one of ordinary skill in this art would have
reasonably been expected to draw therefrom, see In re Fritch, 972 F.2d
1260, 1264-65, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1782-83 (Fed. Cir. 1992); In re Preda,
401 F.2d 825, 826, 159 USPQ 342, 344 (CCPA 1968), presuming skill on
the part of this person. In re Sovish, 769 F.2d 738, 743, 226 USPQ 771, 774
(Fed. Cir. 1985). We found above that the teachings of Rochlis with respect
to Fig. 21 thereof would have disclosed to this person a non-random,
consistent and uniform array of different geometrically shaped cavities.
Thus, we determine that the Examiner has established that one of
ordinary skill in this art would have combined Pieper and Rochlis as applied
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