Appeal 2006-2564
Application 10/259,743
known prior art in the Appellants’ Specification may be used in determining
the patentability of a claimed invention.); see also In re Davis, 305 F.2d 501,
503, 134 USPQ 256, 258 (CCPA 1962).
Claims 14 and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as Unpatentable over the
Combined Disclosures of Calio and Stadler
The disclosure of Calio is discussed above. The Examiner has
acknowledged that Calio does not couple an inert gas inlet tube associated
with the producing means to the tank (Answer. 4).
To account for this missing feature, the Examiner has taken official
notice that “[such] configuration of the claimed apparatus is well known in
the art and utilized in order to fix gas distribution means inside the
processing bath (id.)” Moreover, the Examiner has found that Stadler
teaches such an arrangement for the purpose of bubbling gas in a tank (id.).
Based on the above findings, the Examiner has determined that one of
ordinary skill in the art would have been led to couple Calio’s gas
introduction tube associated with the gas dispersion plate to the bath,
motivated by a desire to fix and stabilize the gas dispersion plate (Answer
4-5).
The Appellant has not challenged the Examiner’s official notice or the
Examiner’s finding drawn to Stadler (Br. 5-6 and Reply Br. 1-3). Nor has
the Appellant specifically challenged the Examiner’s factual basis for
combining the teachings of the prior art references (id.). The Appellant’s
principal argument is that neither Calio nor Stadler teaches the claimed
programmable controller (Br. 6).
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013