Appeal No. 98-0599
Application 08/434,029
optical recording disk as having a base substrate formed of a
light-transmitting material, such as polycarbonate resin.
Polycarbonate is a well known material. For good reason,
the appellant has not disputed the art-recognized properties
of the material. Polycarbonate is a transparent thermoplastic
resin easily fabricated by thermoforming. See The Condensed
Chemical Dictionary, Eighth Edition, 1971 (copy of definition
enclosed). Kato describes that its control ring 19 is formed
by a compound plastic containing a filler and that the
compound plastic “can be selected mainly from thermoplastic
resins such as polyacetal, nylon, polybutylene terephthalate,
polyester, polypropylene, polyethylene, polyfluoroethylene,
etc.” (Kato, column 2, lines 10-20). Such evidence, from the
perspective of one with ordinary skill in the art, reasonably
would have suggested that Kato’s disk media 16 and control
ring 19 can be made from the same kind of material, e.g., a
thermoplastic like polycarbonate resin. On this record, there
is no reason for one with ordinary skill in the art to suspect
that the presence of a filler would cause the plastic to
become unsuitable as the disk media substrate.
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