Appeal 2007-2510
Application 10/389,456
1 limited to the specifically described examples. This impression is also
2 supported by the standard disclaimer that "it should be understood that
3 various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made herein without
4 departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as defined in the appended
5 claims." (Id. at 5:11–14.) These general disclosures indicate that those
6 skilled in the art might have looked beyond the four corners of the
7 Economikos disclosure for other semiconductors that might be useful in the
8 process. We leave further findings of fact related to the reasons to combine
9 the references—and the weighing of their import—to the sound judgment of
10 the Examiner and Wang in the first instance, in the event of further
11 prosecution.
12 We are well aware of the difficulties of finding disclosures in the
13 technical literature of "things that everyone knows." At the same time, we
14 caution both examiners and applicants, generally, that relying on procedural
15 technicalities to avoid dealing with the substance of a rebuttal or a rejection,
16 tends to weaken the credibility of the argument. No argument is more
17 persuasive than one that deals forthrightly with all the facts of record,
18 including those that do not support the proponent's position as well as those
19 that do.
20 As the Examiner has relied on Fitzgerald and Moon solely to teach
21 other limitations recited in dependent claims, we need not consider
22 separately the rejections based on those references.
14
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