Ex Parte Guldi - Page 7

                 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).                                                                    



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