Appeal 2006-2293
Application 10/471,932
provide sufficient corrosion protection in the context of Kent's invention, to
offset Kent's discouragement of a thickness less than 9 microns. On balance,
a person of ordinary skill in the art, possessed with knowledge of the
teachings of Kent and Siak, would have been discouraged from providing a
coating metal layer within the range called for in Appellant's claims, rather
than prompted to do so. Accordingly, the modification would not have been
obvious.
Moreover, even if Kent were modified as proposed by the Examiner,
Kent does not disclose the relative heat capacities of the aluminum fin and
the zinc layer or provide sufficient information about the aluminum fin and
the coating to permit determination of the relative heat capacities to ascertain
whether the relative heat capacity limitation of Appellant's claims is
satisfied.
For the above reasons, we conclude that the Examiner has not
discharged the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness of the subject matter of independent claims 28 and 45 or claims
29, 30, 32, 33, 42-44, 46-48, and 52-54 depending from claims 28 and 45.
The rejection is reversed.
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