Rudolf Karl. Grau et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 9, 2020

15215170 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jan. 9, 2020)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
15/215,170 07/20/2016 Rudolf Karl GRAU P15-06048-US-NP 3496
27877 7590 01/09/2020
KENNAMETAL INC.
Intellectual Property Department
P.O. BOX 231
1600 TECHNOLOGY WAY
LATROBE, PA 15650
EXAMINER
EMPIE, NATHAN H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1712
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/09/2020 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
k-corp.patents@kennametal.com
larry.meenan@kennametal.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte RUDOLF KARL GRAU, RODRIGUE NGOUMENI YAPPI, and
HUBERT JOSEF SCHWEIGER
Appeal 2019-002020
Application 15/215,170
Technology Center 1700
Before BEVERLY A. FRANKLIN, LINDA M. GAUDETTE, and
JANE E. INGLESE, Administrative Patent Judges.
GAUDETTE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL1
The Appellant2 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
decision finally rejecting claims 5–12 and 14–18.3
We REVERSE.

1 This Decision includes citations to the following documents: Specification
filed July 20, 2016 (“Spec.”); Final Office Action dated April 23, 2018
(“Final”); Appeal Brief filed September 24, 2018 (“Appeal Br.”);
Examiner’s Answer dated November 9, 2018 (“Ans.”); and Reply Brief filed
January 9, 2019 (“Reply Br.”).
2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37
C.F.R. § 1.42. The Appellant identifies the real party in interest as
Kennametal, Inc. Appeal Br. 3.
3 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
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BACKGROUND
In vacuum metallization systems, a metal is deposited onto a flexible
substrate, such as a plastic film, by physical vapor deposition (PVD). Spec.
1:19–22. During the process, a heating current is applied to an evaporator
body that preferably contains titanium boride and boron nitride as the main
components. Id. at 1:26–27, 31–32. A coating material, e.g., aluminum, is
fed continuously to the heated evaporator body and evaporates on an
evaporator surface of the evaporator body. Id. at 1:22–24. According to the
Specification, “[f]or continuous coating with the highest possible processing
speed, . . . [i]t is especially important that the evaporator surface of the
evaporator body be as homogenous as possible and be completely wetted
with the material to be evaporated.” Id. at 1:34–2:2. “[T]he object of the
invention is to provide an economical evaporator body with simultaneously
excellent wetting behavior for aluminum.” Id. at 4:2–3. Claim 5, reproduced
below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
5. A method for producing an evaporator body for a PVD
coating system with a basic body and an evaporator surface on
the basic body, which comprises the following steps:
providing a suspension of titanium hydride and an
organic carrier agent in an organic solvent; and
applying the suspension onto the evaporator surface
while forming a titanium hydride layer, in which titanium
hydride is present as the only inorganic solid;
wherein the titanium hydride layer is formed in a
thickness of no more than 10 μm; and
heating the evaporator body to melt aluminum in contact
with the titanium hydride layer to form a Ti-Al wetting layer.
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REFERENCES
The Examiner relies on the following prior art as evidence of
unpatentability:

Name Reference Date
Heyes US 4,810,531 Mar. 7, 1989
Montgomery US 3,730,507 May 1, 1973
Goetz et al. US 2009/0129762 A1 May 21, 2009
Mesick US 2,776,472 Jan. 8, 1957
Marsden US 2,897,394 July 28, 1959
REJECTIONS4
1. Claims 5, 7–10, 12, and 14–18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as unpatentable over Heyes in view of Montgomery and Goetz.
2. Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Heyes in view of Montgomery, Goetz, and Marsden.
3. Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Heyes in view of Montgomery, Goetz, and Mesick.
OPINION
The Examiner rejected independent claim 5 as obvious in view of the
combined teachings of Heyes, Montgomery, and Goetz. The Specification’s
Background section identifies Heyes as disclosing a known method for

4 The Examiner states that the rejection of claims 5–12, and 15–18 under 35
U.S.C. § 112(b) as indefinite is withdrawn, but fails to mention claim 14,
which was also subject to this ground of rejection. See Ans. 3; Final 2. The
Examiner’s rejection under section 112(b) was based solely on limitations in
claim 5. See Final 2–3. Accordingly, we assume that the Examiner’s failure
to include claim 14 in the statement of the withdrawn rejection was
inadvertant, harmless error.
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improving the wetting of a boron nitride evaporator body. See Spec. 2:4–5,
3:15–21. The Specification describes Heyes as
disclos[ing] a method for the chemical vapor deposition of tin,
in which an evaporator body comprising boron nitride is
provided with an evaporation layer, to which a dispersion
containing titanium hydride is applied. The titanium dihydride .
. . is dispersed in a chlorinated organic solvent, preferably
carbon tetrachloride. As the evaporator body is heated, the
solvent evaporates and a titanium hydride layer remains as a
wetting layer, which is intended to improve the wetting
behavior for tin as the material to be evaporated.
Id. at 3:15–21 (emphasis added). The Specification’s description is
consistent with Heyes’s disclosure in column 1, lines 59–63, and column 2,
lines 34–40, which the Examiner relied on in finding that Heyes discloses
the limitations recited in the first two paragraphs in the body of claim 5. See
Final 4. The Examiner found that although Heyes is concerned with using an
evaporator body to deposit tin onto a plastic film surface, Heyes discloses
that it was common in the art to use aluminum for metallizing packaging
films. Id. (citing Heyes 1:19–26).
Montgomery discloses that when using a boron nitride evaporator
body to deposit aluminum onto a plastic film surface, wetting of the
evaporator body by molten aluminum is slow or limited during start-up of
the metallizing apparatus (Heyes 1:36–40). According to Montgomery,
“[t]his delay in wetting reduces the total efficiency of the metallizing process
and is to be avoided, if possible.” Id. at 1:41–42. Montgomery discloses that
by applying a titanium-silicon coating to the surface of the evaporator body,
it was possible to double the rate of aluminum evaporation. Id. at 3:46–49.
According to Montgomery, “[t]his increase in evaporation rate was due to
the fact that the aluminum readily and completely wetted the evaporation
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surface of the titanium-silicon coated boron nitride base vessel.” Id. at 3:49–
52. Based on this disclosure, the Examiner found that one of ordinary skill in
the art would have understood that aluminum evaporation rate can be
enhanced by a wetting layer on the evaporator body and, therefore, would
have utilized Heyes’s titanium-hydride coated evaporator body to deposit
not only tin, but also aluminum onto a plastic film. See Final 4.
The Examiner found that neither Heyes nor Montgomery discloses
explicitly the temperature to which the evaporator bodies are heated. Final 4.
The Examiner found, however, that Goetz teaches that “evaporation of
[a]luminum for aluminum vaporizing deposition processes involves
placement of the aluminum in the bo[dy] and then heating at [a] temperature
of from 1450–1600°C.” Id. Because this temperature range is encompassed
by the range used in the Appellant’s process (see, e.g., claim 10), the
Examiner found that the method resulting from the combined teachings of
Heyes, Montgomery, and Goetz necessarily would have resulted in a Ti-Al
wetting layer as claimed. Id. at 5.
The Appellant argues that a preponderance of the evidence does not
support the Examiner’s finding that the ordinary artisan would have had a
reasonable expectation of success in using Heyes’s titanium hydride coated
evaporator body to enhance aluminum evaporation rate. See Appeal Br. 7.
The Appellant’s argument is persuasive.
As argued by the Appellant (Appeal Br. 7), Montgomery discloses
that wetting of molten aluminum is enhanced by bonding a molecular layer
of titanium-silicon alloy to the surface of an evaporator body (Montgomery
2:58–59, 3:44–54). The Examiner did not cite, nor do we find, any
disclosure in Montgomery that a wetting layer comprising another material
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would be expected to enhance aluminum evaporation rate. Rather, as argued
by the Appellant (Appeal Br. 7), Heyes’s disclosure suggests the exact
opposite. Heyes tested the evaporation of tin using evaporator bodies coated
with materials chemically similar to titanium hydride (see Heyes 2:55–58)
and found that “similar titanium compounds and hydrides of similar metals
did not produce the results achieved with titanium hydride” (id. at 3:36–38).
We have considered the disclosure in Heyes column 2, lines 41–47, cited by
the Examiner on page 5 of the Answer, but do not agree with the Examiner
that this disclosure teaches or suggests that a titanium hydride coating would
have been expected to enhance aluminum evaporation rate. In the cited
disclosure, Heyes describes the result of evaporating tin in an uncoated
evaporator body that was previously used for evaporating aluminum: “some
partial wetting was observed but the tin evaporation rate was still
inadequate” (Heyes 2:46–47).
In sum, for the reasons discussed above, we are persuaded of
reversible error in the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 5. The
Examiner relies on the same unsupported fact finding in the separate
rejections of claims 6 and 11. See Final 8–9. Accordingly, we reverse all
three grounds of rejection.

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CONCLUSION
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
5, 7–10,
12, 14–18
103 Heyes, Montgomery,
Goetz
5, 7–10,
12, 14–18
6 103 Heyes, Montgomery,
Goetz, Mardsen
6
11 103 Heyes, Montgomery,
Goetz, Mesick
11
Overall
Outcome
5–12, 14–
18

REVERSED