Appeal No. 2001-1853
Application 09/198,217
the artisan either explicitly or implicitly that Bullock would
have indicated to the artisan that a nonconductive substrate was
implicitly useable as asserted by the examiner at page 4 of the
answer. On the other hand, we are persuaded by the totality of
evidence before us that it would have been obvious for the
artisan to have substituted the metal substrate material 3 in
Bullocks' embodiments for an electrically insulating substrate
material.
At the outset, we note that Stein essentially teaches an art
equivalence for metal and plastic substrates at column 1, lines
30-36. Additionally, Figure 2 in Stein and the discussion at
column 3, lines 34-37 and column 4, lines 46-55 contain specific
teachings of utilizing such plastic foil inner layer substrate
material as 2K shown in Figure 2. Moreover, appellants' own
specification at page 3, line 10 through page 4, line 18
indicates that it was known in the art to utilize an electrically
insulating material as a substrate material in prior art
piezoelectric bending transducer devices.
Additionally, the examiner considers the obviousness of
utilizing either an insulating or conductive inner substrate
material as a carrier plate in the arguments bridging pages 4 and
5
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