Appeal No. 2004-0620 Page 6
Application No. 09/698,898
electrical connector assembly having a contact 5 including an arcuate receiving section
53, it is our opinion that Lin '348 would not have taught or suggested modifying the
terminal contact end 36 of intermediate conductive element 35 of Farnworth to have an
arcuate receiving section. As set forth above, teachings of references can be combined
only if there is some motivation, suggestion or incentive to do so. Here, the applied
prior art contains none. That is, there is no motivation or suggestion in the applied prior
art for one skilled in the art at the time the invention was made to have modified
Farnworth's terminal contact end 36 to include an arcuate receiving section. The
disparate nature of the connectors of Farnworth and Lin '348 provide no suggestion for
a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to have modified
Farnworth to arrive at the claimed subject matter. Lin '348 provides the arcuate
receiving section to maintain a solder ball in position. However, there is no evidence
that Farnworth utilized a solder ball to connect the terminal contact end 36 to the
corresponding terminal on the substrate. As such, there is no motivation, teaching or
suggestion in the applied prior art to have modified Farnworth to arrive at the claimed
subject matter.
For the reasons set forth above, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 1
to 3, 5 to 9 and 11 to 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
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