Appeal No. 2006-1079
Application No. 10/139,085
have been discouraged from manufacturing a printed wiring board as taught by Soutar,
using Whitney’s immersion plating method merely because Soutar teaches a method
which is said to provide good adhesion.
The rejection is affirmed.
Claims 1-6, 8, 10, 11 and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Kinase.
The examiner relies on Kinase for a teaching of a method of improving the
adhesion of a layer of silver deposited from an immersion plating bath comprising the
step of: contacting copper (a metal that is less electropositive than silver) with a
pretreatment solution comprising 0.005-10 g/l of an agent for preventing silver deposition
by displacement, such as hydroxybenzotriazole and 1,10-phenanthroline, prior to
contacting the metal with an immersion silver plating bath. The examiner notes that the
final deposited silver coating is said to achieve better adhesion and less tarnish than prior
art coatings.
Appellants argue that the examiner’s interpretation is contrary to the clear
teachings of Kinase. We agree. As pointed out by appellants, Kinase discloses that silver
layers deposited by immersion plating exhibit extremely poor adhesion which cannot be
cured by successive electroplating. Col. 1, ll. 30-33. Thus, Kinase actually seeks to
prevent silver deposition by immersion plating using a pretreatment solution which is
described as having a “long effective life for preventing the silver deposition” by
immersion Col. 2, ll. 53-61. The final silver coating is deposited by electroplating. The
examiner acknowledges that Kinase actually seeks to inhibit silver deposition by
immersion plating, but maintains that because copper is less electropositive than silver,
10
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007