Appeal No. 96-2810
Application 08/017,086
We are not convinced by the evidence in appellants’
specification that the glazed ceramic articles Norris
describes “do not necessarily or inherently possess the
characteristics” of the glazed ceramic articles appellants
claim. See In re Thorpe,
at 698, 227 USPQ at 966.
Appellants’ exemplified Prior Art Preparation (control)
employs 0.2g of xanthan gum as the thickener. The exemplified
Invention Preparation employs 0.21g of an HMHEC (Spec., pp. 5-
6). While Norris prefers to use xanthan gum as the thickener,
the modified cellulose ethers that Norris also describes for
use as the thickener more closely resembles the thickeners
utilized in the method appellants claim. The comparative
differences between glazed articles may be attributable to
viscosity and molecular composition differences between
xanthan gum and modified cellulose ether gum, both of which
are described by Norris. Moreover, the “ceramic raw material”
of the Prior Art Preparation and the “ceramic raw materials”
of the Invention Preparation are not defined in the
specification (Spec., p. 5).
Appellants’ statement that “[a] visual comparison of
these tests revealed that the experimental materials dried
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