Appeal No. 1997-2097 Application No. 08/191,137 coatings, and Ni would have been expected to be a suitable intermediate layer for Klingenmaier’s Fe coating because Ni and Fe are well known for forming alloys, hence they would have been expected to form a compatible interface where no adhesion problems would have been expected . . . . The relative toxicity of a solution is an inherent property and if the particular nickel, bath is less toxic than Klingenmaier’s Cu cyanide, that is just an additional reason for substituting Ni plating for the Cu coating, as would be recognized by a responsible and ordinary practitioner in the art. While Klingenmaier taught that the FeCl bath 2 proved optimum for deposition of hard Fe on Cu, one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that for a different intermediate layer, i.e. Ni, routine experimentation with known Fe plating solutions would have been needed to re-optimize as one would not expect different elements to behave identically with respect to Klingenmaier’s previous optimization. Shemenski et al. teach (abstract) various Fe electroplating solutions . . . that can be used equivalently for deposition on metal . . . . It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to consider such teaching of alternate and equivalent Fe sources for electroplating, when optimizing through routine experimentation as discussed above. . . . . . . Herbert illustrates electroplating iron, using baths containing iron salts . . . onto electrically conductive substrates, which include Al plated with Ni . . . . Hence, it would have been abundantly obvious to one of ordinary skill that given Lock’s teachings as applied to Klingenmaier, one would have expected the Fe to be electroplated on the Ni undercoat with acceptable adhesion, as the prior art explicitly shows that it is known to do so. (emphasis in original). The difficulty we have with the examiner's stated Page 7Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007