Appeal No. 97-3474
Application No. 08/431,211
no argument that the surfaces depicted by Kawaguchi are
“substantially planar.” Therefore, we must determine if there is
a fair suggestion by Kawaguchi that these surfaces be “glass.”
It is clear to us, for the reasons given by the examiner at
page 4 of the answer, that Kawaguchi strongly suggests that these
surfaces should be of glass. Since Kawaguchi indicates, at
column 7, line 19, that “outer case 17 has high transparency”
and, at lines 26-27, that the outer case also is “formed of
strong hard material,” it is our view, as it was the examiner’s,
that such a description of the properties of the outer case would
have led the artisan to employ glass as the outer case. While
there may be materials, other than glass, which would fit this
description, it is our view that given the description of a
strong, hard material that is also transparent, the artisan would
have first been led to glass. This is made even more suggestive,
in our view, by the disclosure, by Kawaguchi, at column 7, lines
42-45, that LCD 15 is made by “sandwiching a liquid crystal
material between two glass plates…” [emphasis ours]. Quite
clearly, when Kawaguchi was interested in a strong, hard
transparent material for sandwiching liquid crystal material,
Kawaguchi turned to glass.
Thus, we are persuaded that the skilled artisan, viewing the
totality of the Kawaguchi reference, would have been led to use
glass as the first surface of both the LCD and the optical
component.
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