Appeal No. 2006-2104
Application No. 10/655,904
the rejection is not based on anticipation and, as stated by the
Examiner, merely requires a skilled artisan to select the
thickness of the SiC body for a particular infrared wavelength
through conducting routine experimentations.
Appellant also argues that the detector of Ichikawa operates
based on impurity absorption and not acoustic absorption (brief,
paragraph bridging pages 8-9). We agree with the Examiner
(answer, pages 6 and 7) that acoustic absorption must occur in
the detector of Ichikawa since the thickness range of its SiC
bodies includes 200 micrometers, which is the same thickness
indicated in Appellant’s disclosure as showing acoustic
absorption (specification, page 7, lines 8-12).
Appellant further argues that since Ichikawa employs SiC
fibers having a thickness of 200 micrometers only along the
center axis of the fiber, the reference teaches away from the
claimed range of thickness of at least 400 micrometers (brief,
page 9). We disagree with Appellant’s characterization of the
claimed “body of SiC” as having a specific shape or dimension
since the claims are not so limited. Absent any particular shape
or specific way of designating any of the dimensions of the SiC
body as the “thickness,” we find the Examiner’s characterization
of the fiber diameter as the body thickness to be reasonable.
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