Appeal No. 1997-2977
Application No. 08/431,688
art would not be able to ascertain the scope of the appealed
claims because the specification fails to set forth what the
appellants would consider to be a “substantial” amount of
surface reflectance. As we stated above, the term
“substantial” is a relative term, which may vary on a case-by-
case basis. We therefore hold that the examiner correctly
rejected claims 1 through 14 and 22 through 26 under the
second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112.
Turning to the examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. §
103, the appellants state:
The Applicants admit that Babel, et al., as a
prior art reference, would respond to all of the
limitations of, for example, Claim 1 accept [sic,
except] for the fluoropolymer protective topcoat.
Thus, Applicants admit that the coating in Babel, et
al. is used on a substrate to provide optical
properties for use in low earth orbit outer space
environments. Further, the Applicants admit that
the first two clauses of Claim 1 are met by the
Babel,
et al. patent. It is clearly the fluoropolymer
topcoat which is not taught in Babel, et al.
[Substitute appeal brief, p. 10.]
Thus, a principal question raised in this appeal is whether
one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious
within the meaning of section 103 to modify the substrate
described in Babel by applying a fluoropolymer topcoat so as
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