Appeal No. 2001-1771 4
Application No. 09/205,782
sheet openings to cool the electronic components 407 mounted on the circuit board 406
(col. 4, lines 39-49).
In rejecting the appealed claims as being unpatentable over Atkins in view of
AAPA, the examiner considers that the magnetically permeable mats of the shielding
components of Adkins constitute body elements being made of a material with randomly
intertwined filaments with spacing between the filaments for permeation by a coolant. The
examiner concedes that these mats do not necessarily have fused filaments as claimed.
The examiner turns to AAPA for a teaching of a material comprising randomly intertwined
and fused filaments.
The portion of appellants’ specification that constitutes AAPA reads as follows:
Referring to Figure 2 there is shown a microscopic view of a metal foam
coolant permeable material. The material is a random distribution of
intertwined and fused filaments of a non-corrosive metal. The material is
available in the art in a wide range of specifiable densities at specifiable
dimensions. One manufacturer is Hogen Industries, in Mentor, Ohio, U.S.A..
The greater the permeability and the less dense the material is the more it
will deform under stress and the more coolant can pass through it
transferring more heat. [Specification, page 9, lines 14-23.]
It is the examiner’s position that AAPA demonstrates that the metal fused foam
material used by appellants in the practice of their invention is well-known in the art.
Based on this circumstance, the examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the mat material of
Adkins to be made of fused metal foam as taught by AAPA because “the fused metal
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