Appeal No. 2005-0711
Application No. 09/943,644
From these findings, the examiner concludes that it would
have been obvious at the time of appellants’ invention to coat
other TVE-PFCB polymers, such as those disclosed by Smith or
Babb, using the coating and baking in a nitrogen atmosphere as
taught by Smith or Babb, to the thicknesses disclosed as useful
for PFCB polymeric waveguide cores by Fischbeck or Shacklette,
using the high solids content solutions taught by Kennedy based
upon the direction of Shah that the composition of the monomer
solution can control the refractive indices, glass transition
temperature and long term thermal stability (Answer, pages 8-9
and 10-11). The examiner also concludes that it would have been
obvious to add an upper cladding layer, such as a PFCB copolymer
cladding layer, to improve the waveguiding properties of the
article with a reasonable expectation of success since Kaneko
teaches that the same materials can be used for the core and
cladding layers and Shah teaches control of the refractive
indices by optimizing the monomer composition (Answer, pages 9-10
and 11-12).
Appellants argue that there is no suggestion found in the
references to process and utilize the known PFCB copolymer
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