Appeal No. 1998-0873
Application 08/301,279
On balance, we agree with Appellant that there is no
motivation to combine the references to arrive at the
claimed process steps. The lamp references to Mossel and
Young do not suggest the feasibility of coating a lamp tube
with phosphor after it has been bent into a nonlinear shape
by using a nozzle dragged through the tube. While Young
discloses that the phosphor coating should be uniform, it
contemplates only the two kinds of phosphor application
processes disclosed as prior art by Appellant (col. 16,
lines 1-17). Muta discloses painting large underground
water pipes and there is no suggestion that the arrangement
could be used in coating fluorescent tubes. Thus, the only
apparent motivation for one of ordinary skill in the lamp
art to look to the painting arrangement in Muta to coat a
"U"-shaped fluorescent tube is found in Appellant's
disclosure, the use of which is hindsight. "The mere fact
that the prior art may be modified in the manner suggested
by the Examiner does not make the modification obvious
unless the prior art suggested the desirability of the
modification." In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266,
23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84 (Fed. Cir. 1992), citing
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