Appeal No. 95-0112 Application 07/787,994 thermal stability, one skilled in the art would have no reason4 to maintain the temperature of the heat treatment at the minimum 600E C temperature, which according to claim 1 is essential in order to produce a superplastic steel. Although the examiner urges us to believe that one of ordinary skill in the metallurgical art would have been motivated to select a heat treatment temperature of 600E C from the disclosed range of 600E to 1100E C, he has given us no reasons based on the teachings of Giessen, or knowledge generally available in the art, as to why one would have done so. Thus, on this record, the only thread we find which ties together all the essential alloy components and the temperature range required by claim 1 is the appellant’s disclosure. The examiner has not begun to establish that based on the teachings of the prior art, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to select the claimed components and temperature range in order to produce superplastic steel. In our opinion the examiner has relied on “hindsight” to arrive at the conclusion that the present invention is obvious over the prior art. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1784 (Fed. Cir. 4 Giessen, col. 4, lines 8-11. 7Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007