Appeal No. 2007-1530
Application 10/095,112
the desire to reduce the weight of the connector housing of the Admitted Prior Art
would have motivated the artisan, having knowledge of Pyzik, to make the
connector housing with one of Pyzik’s ceramic-metal composite materials.7
The Examiner initially relied on Pyzik for its teachings regarding the
stiffness provided by the ceramic-metal composite materials. Specifically, in the
(non-final) Office Action from which this appeal is taken, the Examiner held that
“it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill . . . to modify the connector
housing of Applicant’s admitted prior art by making it of metal composite material
comprising lightweight metal and hollow ceramics grains as taught in Pyzik et al.
to increase the stiffness of the housing” (Office Action 3). This reasoning is
unpersuasive because the “stiffness” property of concern to Pyzik, i.e., “specific
stiffness,” represents the resistance of a component to deflection by inertial loads
generated by accelerations and decelerations (col. 7, l. 66 to col. 8, l. 1), a property
having no relevance to the connector housing of the Admitted Prior Art.
However, in the Answer the Examiner additionally relies on Pyzik’s
disclosure that the disclosed ceramic-metal disk substrates are light in weight:
[T]he use of metal-ceramic composite [in Pyzik] is specifically for
improving the stiffness and because of its lightweight [sic – light
weight] (Column 2, Lines 11-13; Column 3, Lines 20-24; and
Column 7, Lines 22-34). Appellant’s reason for using the same
material is in fact because of its lightweight. Therefore, the use of this
material is reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which
the applicant was concerned. Furthermore, it has been held to be
within the general ordinary skill of a worker in the art to select a
7 The Examiner does not argue cost savings as a motivation.
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