Appeal No. 1999-0421 Page 4
Application No. 08/587,866
which absorbs heat from the heating medium and changes phase from a solid to a liquid. The
accumulating chambers are formed from a flexible sheet comprising a first sheet 11 having a
rectangular wave shape and a flat second sheet 13 joined together and spirally wound. The
resulting structure, as shown in Figure 1, has straight-line flow passages 4 which impose
relatively low resistance to the flow of the heating medium and the heat transfer between the
heating medium and the accumulating material is quite efficient (translation, page 4).
In rejecting the claims, the examiner takes the position that it would have been obvious
to one of ordinary skill in the art to coil the Minakami spacer and base strips (elements 12)
together for the purpose of maintaining a low resistance to fluid flow and improving the heat
exchange efficiency between the heat sink/exchanger and the heat exchanging fluid flowing
therethrough as disclosed in Kashima (answer, page 4).
Having reviewed the applied references, we fail to perceive any teaching, suggestion or
incentive therein which would have motivated an artisan to modify Minakami in the manner
proposed by the examiner so as to arrive at the subject matter of claim 1 or claim 8. In
particular, while we appreciate that both Kashima and Minakami are directed to heat transfer
devices, we also observe that the objective of Kashima to accumulate latent heat in the
accumulator differs materially from that of Minakami to transfer heat from a heat generating
device, such as a semiconductor chip, to the heat sink and then to the cooling fluid passing over
and through the heat sink. Further, Minakami discloses a heat transfer device or heat sink
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