Appeal No. 96-0317
Application 08/042,185
appellants’ discussion of U.S. Patent No. 4,341,816 which, appellants state, discloses
attachment of a sputtering target to a cooling plate by plasma spraying a metal adhesive
layer onto a surface of the target, coating the adhesive layer with a solderable layer by
plasma spraying, and soldering the solderable layer onto the surface of the cooling plate
(specification, page 1). The examiner also relies upon appellants’ statements
(specification, page 1) that plasma spraying an aluminum layer onto a sputtering target
was known in the art and that it was known in the art that silicon was difficult to wet with
solder (answer, pages 4-5).
Appellants argue that Lauterbach et al. do not disclose depositing a solder layer
onto a solderable layer by any method, much less by arc spraying (brief, pages 4-6). In our
view, the teaching that the solderable layer is soldered to the cooling plate would have
fairly suggested, to one of ordinary skill in the art, use of solder to achieve the soldering.
We are not persuaded by the argument that the reference does not disclose applying a
solder layer by arc spraying because such a layer is made of metal (specification, page 5),
and both Lindmayer ‘391 (col. 2, lines 62-68) and Lindmayer ‘812 (col. 1, line 64 - col. 2,
line 1) teach that it was known in the art to apply layers of metallic material by arc spraying.
Appellants argue that there is no apparent incentive for one of ordinary skill in the
art of bonding silicon-containing targets to metal to even consider the Lindmayer
references which pertain to the solar cell art wherein arc spraying is disclosed as an
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