Appeal No. 2001-1818
Application 09/048,533
purposes of that inquiry, whatever is now being claimed. Vas-Cath v. Mahurkar, 935
F.2d 1555, 1563-1564, 19 USPQ2d 1111, 1117 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
We turn to claim 1 and the specific element the Examiner has focused on:
a metallic film vaporized onto and adhering to said second side of said substrate,
said metallic film being devoid of defects;
The specification, at page 6, lines 15-17, describes the application of the
protective layer:
Such [protective] layer is preferably applied to the metallic film while the latter is
still devoid of scratches and/or other defects which would render the film
permeable to gases.
This amply supports the three-layer structure claimed in claim 1, a substrate, a
metallic film devoid of defects (e.g. scratches or pin-holes), and a protective layer.
One of skill in the art would recognize that this passage means, at the time of
application of the protective layer, a three-component structure is formed which is
devoid of defects in the metallic film layer.
It appears to us that the Examiner has focused on a passage at page 9, lines 5-
13 which discusses the processing of the metal film after the protective coating is
applied. In this discussion, the Applicant states that:
If a protective coating which has a high affinity to the metal film, is evaporated
onto the metal film immediately after coating the metal film, then the large
surface tension in the metal film is absorbed due to the high affinity. The metal
film then becomes less susceptive to mechanical stress and tends to produce a
smaller number of pin windows. The foil onto which the metal film is evaporated,
can then be deflected over rollers and wound up without adversely affecting the
imperviousness of the metal.
We note that this paragraph relates to later processing of the three-layer
structure, i.e. deflecting, rolling, etc. Those later processing steps and the end results
of them are not the subject of the present claim; rather, they merely recite what may
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