Appeal No. 2003-1796 Page 2
Application No. 09/513,563
BACKGROUND
The appellants' invention relates to flexible body armor designed to defeat high-
velocity projectiles (specification, p. 1). A copy of the claims under appeal is set forth in
the appendix to the appellants' brief.
Claims 1, 5 to 10, 16 and 23 to 28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over either Dunbar1 or Rudoi2, in view of Chediak3. The examiner's
complete reasoning in support of the rejection (final rejection, pp. 2-3) is as follows:
Dunbar discloses a disc shaped armor plate (figure 5) having a first
inclined surface, which extends from the center dome portion of the disc and
leads to a substantially flat surface portion circumferentially extending around the
inclined surface (i.e. the inclined surface flows into the substantially flat
circumferential surface and a containment wrap.) Rudoi likewise discloses a disc
shaped armor plate with containment wrap. (See Figures 14-30; column 8, lines
31-44, and column 10, lines 36-61.) Both Dunbar and Rudoi fail to disclose the
specific mechanical properties of the ceramic material used in making the discs
nor do they disclose using zirconia in the material forming the disc. It would have
been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention
was made to make the ceramic material have a hardness of at least 12 Gpa and
a fracture toughness of at least 3.8 Mpa-m(½), since it has been held that
discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routine
skill in the art. In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272,205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980). In view
of the teachings of Chediak, it would have been obvious to make the ceramic
disc with some zirconia in the material used to make the disc in order to increase
the strength and fracture resistance of the disc to a high speed bullet.
1 U.S. Patent No. 3,563,836, issued February 16, 1971.
2 U.S. Patent No. 4,633,756, issued January 6, 1987.
3 U.S. Patent No. 5,824,940, issued October 20, 1998.
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