Appeal No. 2001-0106
Application 08/855,811
“Leclanche cells” is outlined. Terminal current collectors are formed by laminating
tinned steel or aluminum foil to a conductive plastic substrate. The statement at column
2, lines 13-17, is especially telling. “While it has been suggested that these metals can
be laminated directly to the conductive plastic substrate, in practice this is not practical
without the use of an intermediate conductive plastic adhesive.”
As noted above, this disclosure unambiguously teaches the metal substrate, a
conductive adhesive, and a conductive adherend as required by claim 6. It does not,
however, teach the layer of coupling agent recited in claim 6. The Examiner turns to the
Pleuddemann and Hahn references to establish the obviousness of this modification.
Pleuddemann discloses using the claimed organosilane coupling agents (column
1, line 25 et seq.) on inorganic substrates (including metals) (column 2, lines 58-66) and
epoxy resins (column 3, lines 18-19). Hahn discloses an organosilane coupling agent
(column 1, lines 32-48) for bonding inorganic surfaces including metal (column 6, line
41-46) with polymers (column 2, lines 32-34).
Again, the Examiner has remained unpersuaded by the resistivity stability results
put forth by the Appellants. For the reasons previously recited, we find no error in the
Examiner’s maintaining this rejection, and affirm Rejection D.
NEW GROUNDS OF REJECTION
We enter new grounds of rejection under the provisions of 37 C.F.R. § 1.196(b).
Rejection J
Claims 1, 3, 6, 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (a) as being
unpatentable over the teachings of U.S. Patent 4,569,877 to Tollefson and U.S. Patent
4,568,602 to Stow individually.
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