Appeal No. 1999-0461
Application No. 08/815,682
method. Similarly, “maintaining ... at a temperature”
reasonably appears to be the same as “vitrifying ... at a
temperature”, both meaning holding the metal oxide micro-
spherules at a particular temperature.
Regarding utility, a predecessor of our appellate
reviewing court stated in In re Langer, 503 F.2d 1380, 1391,
183 USPQ 288, 297 (CCPA 1974):
[A] specification which contains a disclosure of
utility which corresponds in scope to the subject
matter sought to be patented must be taken as
sufficient to satisfy the utility requirement of
§ 101 for the entire claimed subject matter unless
there is reason for one skilled in the art to
question the objective truth of the statement of
utility or its scope.
The examiner argues that the appellant’s claimed method
cannot work because glass cannot be vitrified at temperatures
as low as 200ēC or below (answer, page 4). In support of2
this argument the examiner relies upon Kondo, which discloses
making a porous silica gel plate by a sol-gel method and then
calcining the plate at a temperature of as least 900ēC to
“Vitrification” is “[t]he conversion of a material into a glass or2
glasslike substance, of increased hardness and brittleness.” Hackh’s Chemical
Dictionary 716 (Julius Grant ed., McGraw-Hill 4 ed. 1969). The examinerth
provides no evidence that the appellant’s metal oxide micro-spherules are not
glasslike or of increased hardness and brittleness.
4
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