Appeal No. 96-0317
Application 08/042,185
alternative to plasma spraying for forming electrical contact points (brief, page 6).
Appellants apparently are arguing that the secondary references are nonanalogous
art. The test of whether a reference is from a nonanalogous art is first, whether it is within
the field of the inventor's endeavor, and second, if it is not, whether it is reasonably
pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor was involved. See In re Wood,
599 F.2d 1032, 1036, 202 USPQ 171, 174 (CCPA 1979). A reference is reasonably
pertinent if, even though it may be in a different field of endeavor, it is one which because
of the matter with which it deals, logically would have commended itself to an inventor's
attention in considering his problem. See In re Clay, 966 F.2d 656, 659, 23 USPQ2d
1058, 1061 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
In our view, an inventor who was considering the problem addressed by appellants
of using thermal spraying to bond metal layers to silicon-containing substrates reasonably
would have considered references directed toward using such spraying techniques to
apply metal layers to silicon-containing substrates generally. The secondary references,
therefore, logically would have commended themselves to the inventor’s attention.
Moreover, in the discussion of the prior art in their specification (page 1), appellants state
that it was well known in the art that silicon can be metallized with aluminum to form
electrodes for solar cells. This disclosure indicates that appellants considered the art of
metallizing silicon for making solar cells, and therefore would have taken into account
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