Appeal No. 2002-0932
Application No. 09/510,533
The examiner recognizes that Chen is silent with regard to
any disclosure of the particular apparatus used in the
electroless deposition of the NiP (Answer, page 4). The examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to use any conventional
electroless plating equipment to form the electroless NiP layer
on the substrate of Chen “with the expectation of achieving the
desired results” (id.). The examiner applies Katz as support for
this conclusion, finding that Katz discloses an electroless
nickel deposition process where the plating bath is contained in
equipment which is lined with Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene)
“such that the equipment is not coated by the nickel” with the
formation of a uniform and smooth layer (id.). The examiner
further finds that one skilled in the art of electroless plating
would have recognized that “electroless nickel and electroless
Ni-P plating process [sic] are chemically and functionally very
similar and would be expected to behave similarly in the same
environments” (id.). Based on these findings, the examiner
further concludes that it would have been obvious to one skilled
in the art to use the polytetrafluoroethylene coated electroless
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