Appeal No. 95-2312
Application No. 07/897,870
sparking (at least for some period of time to some extent
which is a degree of sparking prevention embraced by the
claims under consideration). In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252, 1255,
195 USPQ 430, 433 (CCPA 1977)(where claimed and prior art
products are identical or substantially identical, the PTO can
require an applicant to prove that the prior art products do
not necessarily or inherently possess the characteristics of
his claimed product).
The appellant argues that Hoffman contains no teaching of
covering nonsputtering regions with insulating material to
substantially prevent catastrophic sparking. While this may
be true, it does not militate against a determination that
Hoffman’s insulating collar would inherently and necessarily
substantially prevent catastrophic sparking from nonsputtering
regions. The appellant further argues that “Hoffman clearly
leaves exposed nonsputtering regions of the target across its
surface and length such as is evident from even a cursory
review, for example Fig. 1" (Reply Brief, page 3). However,
the target regions shown to be exposed in patentee’s Figure 1
are in fact sputtering regions from which target material is
uniformly removed (e.g., see lines 12 through 37 in column 2).
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