Appeal No. 2001-1853
Application 09/198,217
We therefore do not agree with appellants' assertions in the
brief that the prior art relied upon by the examiner does not
show both an inner electrode of a piezoelectret element and the
additional use of an electrical conductive coating between this
electrode and the substrate material.
The use of this additionally claimed electrically conductive
coating is said by appellants to provide a solution to a known
problem in the art. This is reflective of the statement made at
page 1 of the specification, lines 16-20 as well as the
discussion in the paragraph bridging pages 4 and 5 of the
specification as filed. Upon a careful consideration of
Bullock's teachings as we just outlined, it is apparent that even
though Bullock does not intend to solve the particular problem
outlined by appellants to use the electrically conductive coating
to ensure that the electric transducer remains functional even
when the inner electrode may be damaged due to material fatigue,
Bullock essentially teaches the dual electrode layers anyway,
thus inherently achieving the disclosed but unclaimed feature.
To the extent appellants argue that the purposes of the
references relied upon by the examiner are different from the
appellants’ disclosed purpose, this is not pertinent to the issue
and is essentially irrelevant if the prior art teachings would
have led the artisan to construct an arrangement having the
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007