Appeal No. 95-3209
Application No. 08/020,304
in the reference. Rather, patentee’s heating/sintering
temperature disclosure expressly teaches “an upper limit
corresponding to the lowest melting point of any one of
constituent components in the material powder” (column 5,
lines 11-13) and “an upper limit which is defined by a melting
point which corresponds to the lowest melting point of any one
of constituent components in the material powder” (column 11,
lines 40-43). From our perspective, one with ordinary skill
in the art would have interpreted these explicit teachings as
defining a heating/sintering temperature range as including an
upper limit temperature equal to the lowest melting point
temperature of the constituent components in the material
powder. When conducting patentee’s sintering and shaping
operations at such an upper limit temperature, the material
powder would unquestionably be “in at least a partially molten
state” as recited in the independent claims on appeal.
In addition to the foregoing, it is our opinion that the
examiner has provided a reasonable basis for believing that
the material in Yamamoto’s Example 1 would be in at least a
partially molten state when heated to the 910EC temperature of
this Example during the sintering and wire-drawing operations.
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