Appeal No. 2005-1579 Page 11
Application No. 09/963,625
thereof just as appellants acid treatment does. According to the
examiner, such a reduction of magnesium would be advantageous as
suggested by Komatsubara.
The difficulty we have with the examiner’s obviousness
position with respect to claims 3, 4, 6 and 7 is that all of the
claims require that the alloy surface is immersed in the acid
bath for a period of time sufficient to achieve the magnesium
content reduction. Here, the examiner has not established that
the time and conditions of treatment for the brightening step of
Askin corresponds to the time and conditions employed by
appellants for the required magnesium reduction. As such, the
examiner’s presentation falls short in making out a prima facie
case of obviousness as to claims 3, 4, 6 and 7.
Consequently, we reverse the examiner’s rejection of claims
3, 4, 6 and 7.
CONCLUSION
The decision of the examiner to reject claims 1 and 5 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Korte in view of
Gillich in separately stated rejections is affirmed. The
decision of the examiner to reject claims 3, 4, 6 and 7 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Korte in view of
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