Appeal No. 1998-2215
Application 08/700,578
sufficient to establish a prima facie case of obviousness.
See In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783
(Fed. Cir. 1992).
Akutsu does not disclose that there are any layer
thickness requirements for maintaining the structural
integrity of the laminate. Moreover, even if one of ordinary
skill in the art would have expected a structural integrity
problem to be caused by using Akutsu’s adhesion preventing
layer or electric heating layer minimum thicknesses of,
respectively, 0.05 Fm and 0.3 Fm (col. 6, lines 49 and 67),
there is no indication in the reference that such a person
would maintain the structural integrity by increasing the
thickness of the 0.12 Fm conductive
layer rather than using a greater thickness of one of the
adhesion preventing layer and electric heating layer, which
have disclosed maximum thicknesses of, respectively, 7 Fm and
150 Fm (col. 6, lines 49 and 67), or using a contact
resistance layer. The record indicates that the motivation
relied upon by the examiner for using Akutsu’s conductive
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