Appeal No. 2006-0576
Application No. 10/284,473
has little relevance to the curing lamp device of Glaus and, at best, provides only a
disclosure that steel wool heat sinks may be
known in the art. The mere fact that the prior art may be modified in the manner
suggested by the Examiner does not make the modification obvious unless the prior art
suggested the desirability of the modification. In re Fritch, 972 F. 2d 1260, 1266, 23
USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
Our review of the disclosure of Hampden reveals that, while a steel wool heat
sink may be used by Hampden, the disclosure of Hampden is directed to a forced air
home heating system. The problem addressed by Hampden, however, i.e., the need to
efficiently capture heat from the flue pipe of a heating system and recycle it through the
heat exchanger, does not exist in the curing lamp device of Glaus.
In our view, the ordinarily skilled artisan, looking to improve the heat sink device
of Glaus, would find in Hampden only a teaching that heat sinks are used to absorb
heat, a fact known by Glaus since the existing device of Glaus uses a heat sink for heat
absorbing purposes. We find nothing in the disclosure of Hampden which teaches why
a steel wool heat sink, as opposed to
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