Appeal No. 2006-2660
Application 10/007,021
cases cited therein (a reference anticipates the claimed method if the step that is not disclosed
therein “is within the knowledge of a skilled artisan.”). Such direction is provided to one skilled
in the art where the totality of the reference provides a “pattern of preferences” which describes
the claimed invention without the necessity for judicious selection from various disclosures
thereof. See In re Sivaramakrishnan, 673 F.2d 1383, 213 USPQ 441 (CCPA 1982) (“[T]he fact
remains that one of ordinary skill informed by the teachings of [the reference] would not have
had to choose judiciously from a genus of possible combinations of resin and salt to obtain the
very subject matter to which appellant’s composition per se claims are directed.”); In re
Schaumann, 572 F.2d 312, 316-17, 197 USPQ 5, 9-10 (CCPA 1978); Petering, 301 F.2d at
681-82, 133 USPQ at 279-80.
We find in Foster substantial evidence which supports the examiner’s position that the
claimed invention encompassed claims 22 and 32, as we have interpreted these claims above,
would have been described to one skilled in this art under the meaning of § 102(e). Foster
acknowledges that it was known in the art to coat articles by electroplating a layer or series of
layers on the substrate and then depositing by physical vapor deposition a further layer or series
of layers (col. 1, ll. 10-15). Foster describes coating an article by electroplating at least one layer
of, among others, nickel, which can be a “duplex nickel layer composed of bright nickel and
semi-bright nickel,” and then vapor depositing a layer or layers of refectory metals, refractory
metal alloys, refractory metal compounds and refractory metal alloy compounds, wherein the
compounds include carbides, oxides, nitrides and carbonitrides (e.g., col. 1, l. 66, to col. 2, l. 20).
Foster describes a preference for zirconium, titanium and zirconium-titanium alloy as the metals
and as the metal of the metal compounds (e.g., col. 6, ll. 58-59 and 63-64, col. 8, ll. 47-52, col. 9,
ll. 1-2, 24-26 and 31-41, col. 10, ll. 55-57, and col. 11, ll. 24-27). The articles can be “any
platable substrate such as metal or plastic,” and can include “brass, zinc, steel and aluminum”
wherein the preferred electroplated coatings include “copper, including alkaline copper and acid
copper, nickel, including bright nickel and semi-bright nickel, and chrome” (col. 3, ll. 55-63).
Contrary to appellants’ first contention, we find that Foster describes “examples of
electroplated layers” in which five of the eleven examples are “substrate/nickel such as bright
nickel, substrate/semi-bright nickel/bright nickel,” “substrate/copper such as acid copper/nickel
such as bright nickel, substrate/copper such as alkaline copper/semi-bright nickel/bright nickel
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