Appeal No. 1998-0546
Application No. 08/560,507
to weight, the examiner is correct to state that Hasumi's
container falls within the appellants' field of endeavor as
defined by the claim. This satisfies the first of the two
alternative tests for analogous art set forth in Wang
Laboratories Inc. v. Toshiba Corp., 993 F.2d 858, 864, 26
USPQ2d 1767, 1773 (Fed. Cir. 1993): "Two criteria are relevant
in determining whether prior art is analogous: (1) whether the
art is from the same field of endeavor, regardless of the
problem addressed, and (2) if the art is not within the same
field of endeavor, whether it is still reasonably pertinent to
the particular problem to be solved." Alternatively,
Toshiba's second test is clearly satisfied, because the
artisan would have looked to conductive plastic containers of
all types, including Hasumi's, to locate a suitable conductive
plastic material of which to make Yoshikawa's housing 2a.
Furthermore, it would have been obvious in view of Hasumi to
form Yoshikawa's housing with a carbon-doped plastic (e.g.,
polyethylene or polypropylene) having a volume resistivity
less than 10 ohm-cms, for example a resistivity within the8
4 8
range of from 10 to just under 10 ohm-cms. It is immaterial
that the problem to be solved in Yoshikawa, i.e., the
-7-
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