Appeal No. 2006-1787
Application No. 09/746,361
the Appeal that the Gilby reference does not disclose an interior
surface of a capillary body wall defining an elongate separation
chamber that is in direct contact with a sample material being
analyzed. Particularly, at page 4 of the Appeal Brief, Appellants
state the following:
Appellants disagree with the Examiner’s statement that
the Gilby “interior surface wall defines an elongate
separation chamber that is in direct contact with a
sample material.” Appellants submit that, unlike the
current invention which the interior of the optical
chamber houses the analyte sample directly, a capillary
or cell has to be placed in the Gilby optical scheme,
and sample analytes are contained within the capillary
or cell.
To determine whether claim 1 is anticipated, we must first
determine the scope of the claim. We note that claim 1 reads in
part as follows:
said interior surface of said body wall defining an
elongate separation chamber that is in direct contact
with a sample material being analyzed.
At page 12, lines 8 through 25, Appellants’ specification states:
Capillary 30 includes an elongate tubular body wall 32
having a substantially cylindrical exterior surface 34
and a substantially cylindrical interior surface 36.
Interior surface 36 defines an elongate cylindrical
sample passageway, or bore, 38 for containment of a
sample material. Interior surface 36 is shown to be
displaced with respect to exterior surface 34. By de-
centering passageway 38 with respect to exterior
surface 34, capillary 30 provides improved optical
properties for interrogating a sample within passageway
38, by including more of the rays 44 that would
ordinarily bypass the core as rays 24 do in FIG. 3.
Body wall 32 includes a first portion 40 upon which
incident interrogation radiation 42 is refracted
through sample passageway 38. First portion 40 of body
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