Appeal No. 2007-1530
Application 10/095,112
known material on the basis of its suitability for the intended use as a
matter of obvious design choice. In re Leshin, 125 USPQ 416. Any
one [sic -- anyone] with ordinary skill in the art would use the claimed
material because of its lightweight characteristics as clearly shown in
Pyzik et al.
Answer 5. We agree that the artisan would have considered Pyzik’s Al—B—C
ceramic-metal composite materials to be a suitable material from which to make a
lighter version of the connector housing of the Admitted Prior Art. The reason is
that those materials are disclosed as being electrically conductive, less dense than
aluminum, and capable of being coated with layers of copper and tin, which are the
material used to improve the shielding characteristics of the connector housing of
the Admitted Prior Art. The fact that the purpose of such coatings in the Admitted
Prior Art is to improve the shielding reduces the significance of the fact that
Pyzik’s Figure 3 chart gives the electrical resistivity values for Al—B—C and
aluminum that indicate aluminum is more electrically conductive than Al—B—C
by at least an order of magnitude.
Of the various properties listed in Pyzik’s Figure 3 chart, the properties most
relevant to mechanical suitability for a connector housing appear to be fracture
toughness (23 for aluminum; 4-8 for Al—B—C) and hardness (30 for aluminum;
700-1700 for Al—B—C). Appellants have not asserted, and it is not otherwise
apparent, that the lower fracture toughness value for Al—B—C would have
discouraged its use as a housing material.
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the artisan would have been
motivated to reduce the weight of the aluminum connector housing of the Admitted
Prior Art by making it from one of Pyzik’s Al—B—C ceramic-metal composite
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