Appeal No. 2007-0290
Application No. 09/778,464
When the lens comprises an abrasion-resistant coating in its
structure, the anti-reflective coating is deposited onto the
surface of the abrasion-resistant layer. Such layering reduces
the impact strength by stiffening the system, which becomes
breakable. This problem is well known in the industry of
ophthalmic lenses made of organic glass.
Id. at 1: 21-25.
A number of solutions have been proposed in the state of the
art. They generally consist in applying an impact-resistant
primer to the substrate of the lens and then applying the hard
abrasion-resistant coating and, lastly, the anti-reflective coating.
Id. at 1, 26-29.
Thus, the background of the application indicates that lenses
comprising an organic glass, impact-resistant primer, hard abrasion-resistant
primer, and anti-reflective coating were known in the prior art.
Appellants assert that they have
now discovered, unexpectedly, that it is possible to insert an
impact-resistant primer between the antireflective and hard
coatings without moving the function of this primer, in order to
obtain an ophthalmic lens which is sufficiently resistant to
abrasion and to impacts and which has satisfactory anti-
reflective properties.
Id. at 2: 24-29.
CLAIMS
Claims 1-3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, 15, 18, and 20-24 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Taniguchi.1
Separate reasons for patentability were not presented for any
individual claims. Consequently, we select claim 1 as representative for the
1 Taniguchi, U.S. Pat. 4,904,525, Feb. 27, 1990.
2
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