Appeal No. 2000-0049
Application 08/826,209
ordinary skill in the art. See In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048,
1051, 189 USPQ 143, 147 (CCPA 1976). The mere fact that the
prior art could be modified as proposed by the examiner is not
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). The examiner must explain why the prior art
would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art the
desirability of the modification. See Fritch, 972 F.2d at
1266, 23 USPQ2d at 1783-84.
The examiner has not explained how Taniguchi’s disclosure
of a smooth mold surface for molding glass optical elements
would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the
wear characteristics of a cutting tool, particularly when that
modification involves reversing the order of Okamura’s layers
and Okamura teaches (page 4) that the first layer is be a
(100) oriented layer because, although it has low hardness, it
has high adhesion which is a desirable first layer property,
and the second layer is to be a (111) oriented layer because,
although it has low adhesion, it has excellent wear resistance
which is a desirable property of the second layer.
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