Appeal No. 2002-1048
Application No. 09/172,734
or a urethane bonding agent curable at room temperature” (column
1, lines 41-43; emphasis added). We are convinced that the
aforequoted teachings of Denda would have led an artisan to
believe that the 250o C reflow temperature of Etchells’ solder,
while appropriate for certain electronic components such as
semiconductor devices, would be entirely too high for a color
image sensor since the latter is not heat-resistant and is
generally bonded using agents curable at room temperature.
Obviousness under Section 103 requires a suggestion for the
modification in question as well as a reasonable expectation that
the modification would be successful. See In re O’Farrell, 853
F.2d 894, 903-04, 7 USPQ2d 1673, 1680-81 (Fed. Cir. 1988). For
the reasons discussed above, Etchells and Denda would not have
suggested the modification proposed by the examiner and would not
have provided an artisan with a reasonable expectation that the
modification would be successful. On the contrary, the teachings
of Denda would have led an artisan to expect that the examiner’s
proposed modification would be unsuccessful.
Under these circumstances, we cannot sustain the examiner’s
Section 103 rejection of claims 1, 3-6 and 8-13 as being
unpatentable over Etchells in view of Denda. Because the
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