Appeal 2007-4035
Application 10/007,979
While we recognize that Donley employs an elevated coating
temperature and that Appellants maintain that the dye coating process of
Postupack is performed at about room temperature, the argued coating
temperature differences do not negate the Examiner’s basis for employing an
angled coating dispenser in Donley based on Postupack’s teaching of using
oblique application angles for obtaining a non-uniform pattern of a coating
traverse to the longitudinal dimensions of a substrate.2 After all, Donley
suggests using a graded coating as an option and the oblique angled
dispensing arrangement of Postupack would have been recognized by one of
ordinary skill in the art as an available technique for obtaining the graded
coating suggested by Donley. In this regard, Appellants have not furnished
any convincing evidence in support of their argument or otherwise presented
a convincing rationale supporting the contention that the argued lower
coating temperature of Postupack would militate against using the obliquely
angled dispenser (nozzle) arrangement thereof for the coating dispensers of
Donley for securing a graded coating film as desired by Donley.
As for Appellants’ contention that Postupack is only concerned with
uniform coating thicknesses, we note that Postupack teaches that non-
uniform intensity of coating spray patterns can be achieved by using
obliquely angled coating nozzles (col. 5, ll. 44-47). Rather than uniform
coating thicknesses as argued, Postupack is concerned with providing a
substantially uniformly thick interlayer, including the coating (Postupack,
col. 3, ll. 20-24).
2 Indeed, we note that Postupack teaches the use of heat lamps as part of the
coating apparatus (Postupack, col. 5, ll. 50-56). Thus, Postupack does not
appear to be limited to room temperature coating as argued.
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013