Appeal No. 2005-0303
Application No. 09/928,884
confronting the instant inventors. While the “degree” of protection for circuits in a box
exposed to the outdoor elements in all seasons may be different from the protection
needed for circuitry in the high temperature environment of an automobile engine,
Denzene’s teaching would have clearly led the artisan to provide for heat sinks,
passivation material and seals in protecting electronic circuits, with the degree of
protection clearly up to the particular environment in which the circuitry is to be used.
We note that nothing in the instant claims is specific to any special type of heat sink,
passivation material or seal, germane only to automotive engine controllers. Clearly,
the artisan would have known to use the proper material (e.g., a seal with a very high
melting point) when employing circuit protection in a high-temperature environment.
Although appellants argue that the instant claims call for an individual heat sink
associated with each partitioned circuit portion of an engine controller, we find nothing in
the instant claims requiring such “individual” heat sinks. But, in any event, we find the
examiner’s rationale that there is nothing unobvious about providing for multiple
heat sinks for multiple elements or a single heat sink for a plurality of elements,
convincing. Appellants state that to “individually heat sink partitioned circuits within the
engine controller is significantly more that (sic, than) simply (heat sinking a component)”
(principal brief-page 7) but provides no convincing explanation as to why this is deemed
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