Appeal No. 2007-0204
Application 10/938,966
embodiment, it is a disclosed embodiment. However, the Board's
Decision did not address the fact that the Specification specifically
references low-resolution 3D acquisitions which does indeed support
claim 51. For this reason, Appellant believes that the Board's
upholding of the written description rejection of claims 51-54 was
erroneous and respectfully requests correction thereof.
It appears that Appellant relies entirely on the sentence in the
Specification that states that "since the slice encoding gradient is disabled
completely in the 2D mode, the acquisition is a true 2D acquisition and not a
low-resolution 3D acquisition (i.e. reduces phase encoding along both
phase/slice encoding direction)" (Specification 8). (The term "reduces" in
parenthesis refers to "phase encoding," and is not relied upon by Appellant.)
As we understand Appellant's argument, although the sentence describes that
the slice encoding gradient is "disabled completely" for "true 2D" acquisition,
the sentence impliedly discloses a "low-resolution 3D" acquisition when the
gradient is "disabled," but not "disabled completely." We agree that the
sentence suggests that a "low-resolution 3D acquisition" will result when the
slice-encoding gradient is not "disabled completely," but is merely "reduced."
However, claim 51 recites "reduced slice encoding and rewinder gradients in
a 2D mode," not in a "3D" mode. Appellant asserts that "'a "single slice" 3D
acquisition' is essentially a form of 2D acquisition" (Req. Reh'g 5). This
meaning does not come across in the Specification. In any case, however,
since claim 51 recites a "2D mode," and since the Specification describes
producing a "true 2D mode" by completely disabling the gradients, there is no
convincing reason why one of ordinary skill in the art would interpret a
- 8 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013