Appeal 2006-2416
Application 09/988,660
Claims 4, 6 and 9 through 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
As evidence of obviousness as to claims 4, 9 through 13 and 15 through 20,
the Examiner relies upon Howard in view of Appellants’ Admitted Prior Art,
further in view of Amos and Ben-Menachem, with the addition of Tennant
as to claims 6 and 14 in a separately stated rejection.
Rather than repeat the positions of the Appellants and the Examiner,
reference if made to the corrected Appeal Brief and Reply Brief for
Appellants’ positions, and to the Answer for the Examiner’s positions.
OPINION
For the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Answer, as amplified
here, we sustain the rejections of all claims on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Since Appellants have presented arguments in the Brief and Reply Brief
only as to independent claim 4 on appeal, we will focus our arguments as to
the argued features of this claim. No arguments are presented before us as to
dependent claims 9 through 13 and 15 through 20 in the first stated rejection
and claims 6 and 14 in the second stated rejection. As such, the rejection of
these dependent claims is also sustained.
At the outset, we note that the focus of the arguments between the
Examiner and Appellants is the essential subject matter of the wherein
clause at the end of claim 4 on appeal. More specifically, the claimed
holographic optical element color corrects a first color band and separately
recites it coincidently focuses at a common focal plane this first color band
and a second color band. These respective color bands are recited to be
wavelengths of 3 to 5 micrometers and 8 to 12 micrometers. These ranges
3
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