Appeal No. 95-3481
Application 08/017,977
language employed must be analyzed, not in a vacuum, but always
in light of the teachings of the prior art and the application
disclosure as it would be interpreted by one possessing the
ordinary level of skill in the pertinent art. See In re
Angstadt, 537 F.2d 498, 501, 190 USPQ 214, 217 (CCPA 1976).
The examiner states that the claims are “incomplete” for not
reciting the parameters of the method for producing the desired
result of an aluminum oxide having an oxygen to aluminum ratio
between 1.3 and 2.0 (answer, page 2). The examiner concludes
that without recitation of the source materials, temperatures,
proportions, etc., the claims are considered incomplete (answer,
pages 2-3).
Considering the claimed phrase in question in light of the2
application disclosure, we find that a critical part of the
claimed method is the oxidized state of the aluminum oxide
(specification, page 3, last line). The oxide needs to be a
“stable oxide” and this is determined by checking the oxygen to
aluminum ratio in the oxide of Al to insure that it is 1.3 or
more, with an upper limit of 2.0 being imposed by the chemical
2 This phrase is “wherein the amount of oxygen introduced into the
atmosphere is such that the oxide of aluminum contained in the formed reflective
film bears an oxygen to aluminum atomic ratio between 1.3 and 2.0.” See claim 4,
lines 7-10.
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