Appeal No. 2006-1946
Application No. 10/437,580
pucks were painted to make them more visible, plastic coatings
were too costly, dyes faded or caused the puck to warp, and other
pucks became mushy and bounced unpredictably upon extensive use
(col. 1, line 61 – col. 2, line 5), teaches away from applying
Kennedy’s thermochromic material to Douglas’ hockey puck (brief,
page 11). It is not apparent from the record whether Kennedy’s
disclosed thermochromic materials, i.e., cholesteric liquid
crystals and leuco dye systems (¶ 0012), would fade or cause the
effects of warping, mushiness, and unpredictable bounce set forth
by Douglas. Regardless, Kennedy’s thermochromic material is not
a coating for the entire golf ball but, rather, is an indicia on
a small part of the ball that tells whether the ball is at the
optimum temperature for playing (¶ 0023; figures 1-4). Moreover,
there is no indication that fading would make Kennedy’s
thermochromic material ineffective, and it does not reasonably
appear that a coating on a small part of the golf ball would be
expensive or would cause warping, mushiness or unpredictable
bounce. Hence, the record supports the conclusion that one of
ordinary skill in the art would have had been motivated to use
Kennedy’s thermochromic material on Douglas’ hockey puck to
indicate whether the puck is at the optimum playing temperature,
and would have had a reasonable expectation of success in doing
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