Appeal 2006-2293
Application 10/471,932
"A reference may be said to teach away when a person of ordinary
skill, upon [examining] the reference, would be discouraged from following
the path set out in the reference, or would be led in a direction divergent
from the path that was taken by the applicant." In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551,
553, 31 USPQ2d 1130, 1131 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
ANALYSIS
As noted above, Kent discloses an exemplary zinc coating thickness
of 9 microns and teaches that "the thickness may be varied, preferably to a
greater amount" (Kent, col. 3, ll. 8-26). One of ordinary skill in the art
would infer from these teachings a recommendation that a zinc coating of at
least 9 microns in thickness should be provided to afford the necessary
corrosion protection. We thus find that Kent would have discouraged one of
ordinary skill in the art from providing a zinc coating thickness "no greater
than 5μm" called for in Appellant's claims. While Siak teaches, in an
evaporator, a zinc coating of up to about 0.6 microns and suggests that such
coating, in addition to facilitating immersion deposition of copper and
promoting adhesion of the copper plate, "may" (emphasis added) also
provide a sacrificial barrier to protect the underlying aluminum from
corrosion that might otherwise be accelerated by the proximity to copper
(Siak, col. 1, ll. 44-54 and col. 3, ll. 41-44), the zinc coating discussed by
Siak is under the copper layer and thus is not exposed directly to the air
flowing through the core as is the zinc coating on the fins of Kent.
Therefore, we conclude that Siak does not provide sufficient teaching or
suggestion to a person of ordinary skill in the art that a zinc coating of less
than 9 microns, such as the claimed "no greater than 5μm" thickness, would
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013