Appeal No. 2006-1002
Application No. 09/945,892
Concerning the separate rejection of claim 29 with Boire as
the primary reference, the issue on appeal is the same, namely,
the antireflective, infrared reflective and primer layers of
Boire have thicknesses outside the claimed ranges. However,
for the reasons set forth above, we find that it would have been
obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the
thicknesses of the relevant layers of Boire in order to achieve
the desired optical properties. We note again that appellants
base no arguments on objective evidence of nonobviousness which
establishes that the claimed thicknesses for the various layers
produces unexpected results. Appellants maintain that “it is not
simply the manipulation of a single layer of a coating but rather
the manipulation of several layers of a coating with the
understanding that the layers interact with each other to provide
the desired overall performance” (sentence bridging pages 17 and
18 of brief). However, as discussed above, it was known in the
art that the thicknesses of the layers can be altered to obtain
the desired levels of luminous transmission, solar heat gain
coefficient, etc. Indeed, appellants have not provided a
convincing rationale why the combination of the claimed
thicknesses for the three layers would have been nonobvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art.
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