Appeal No. 1998-2948
Application 08/400,861
claimed. The claims only require an anodic oxidation film
thickness of 200 Å or more, as recited in claims 1 and 4, or
500 Å or more, as recited in claims 3 and 6, both of which are
met by the range of thicknesses of 1000 Å to 10000 Å in
Kiyota.
Appellants argue that Kiyota does not disclose an
aluminum alloy containing a rare earth element and, therefore,
provides no guidance for the thickness of an anodic oxidation
film when the aluminum alloy contains a rare earth element
(RBr2-3). It is argued that the secondary references do not
disclose anodically-oxidized aluminum/rare earth element films
and, thus, fail to suggest the claimed 200 Å or more thickness
(RBr3).
This argument is repetitive of earlier arguments. While
it is true that Kiyota does not disclose the thickness of the
anodic oxidation film for an aluminum alloy containing a rare
earth element, one of ordinary skill in the art substituting
an aluminum/rare earth element alloy for the aluminum alloy in
Kiyota would have been motivated to use the disclosed
thickness of anodic oxidation, at least as a starting point.
It is not required that Kiyota expressly teach an anodic
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