Appeal No. 2004-1032 Page 5
Application No. 09/835,510
into a thin film would have been prima facie obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art. This is so because AbuJudom (column
4, lines 32-37 discloses forming articles, such as actuators from
the shape memory alloy and, as taught by Johnson (see, e.g.
column 4, lines 26-33 of Johnson), a thin film construction is
known to be suitable for such actuators.
In light of the above and for reasons stated by the examiner
in the answer, appellants’ argument asserting a lack of both a
suggestion and an expectation of success in fashioning a Ni, Cu,
Ti, Hf thin film alloy based on the applied references’ teachings
is not persuasive of unobviousness. Appellants’ arguments
concerning the lack of predictability of adding copper to a Ni,
Ti, Hf alloy are undercut by the express teachings of AbuJudom
with respect to adding copper to replace some of the nickel in
such a Ni, Ti, Hf alloy coupled with the teachings of Melton
with respect to the effects of the addition of copper to a
similar alloy, a teaching which AbuJudom referred to at column 2
of the patent. In other words, AbuJudom provides the teaching
that suggests that adding copper to the Ni, Ti, Hf alloy would be
expected to yield a functional shape memory alloy product that
has a transition temperature of 80/C or more since AbuJudom
teaches that copper addition is consistent with that objective.
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