Appeal No. 2001-0189 Application No. 09/033,873 Turning to a consideration of the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 1, 3, 5, and 6 based on the combination of Hine and Pies, we do not sustain this rejection as well. As with the Moynihan reference discussed supra, our interpretation of the disclosures of both Hine and Pies coincides with that of Appellants, i.e., there is no “pattern of deformable electrode material” as presently claimed. We agree with Appellants (Brief, page 30) that the electrode layers in Hine and Pies are formed by a metallization process in which the metallized electrode layer solidifies and rigidly adheres to the piezoelectric layer surface. Further, as argued by Appellants (id., at 31), the adhesive bonding feature of Pies relied on by the Examiner relates to the joining of metallized conductive surfaces 34 and 38 on two body portions 12 and 14, rather than the bonding of a deformable electrode layer to a piezoelectric layer surface. Given these deficiencies in the Hine and Pies references, it is unclear to us as to how and in what manner the references might be combined to arrive at the claimed invention. It is further our view that even assuming, arguendo, that proper motivation existed for combining Hine and Pies, the Examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case of obviousness since the resultant structure would fall well short of the claimed 7Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007