Appeal No. 95-3094
Application No. 07/975, 141
fluid (gas) jets, a prior art technique used to facilitate the
combining of different types of fibers (specification, page 1,
lines 13-15) which is also described as "an alternative
intermixing process" useful for making the claimed tow
(specification, page 23, lines 4-7) so long as the fibers are
"in a relatively tension-free state". See the decision at
page 6, lines 2-6. According to the newly presented
declaration of Warren of record in this appeal, carbon fibers
are "extremely brittle" and actual attempts to use
"entanglement jets" under "standard operating procedures" to
intermix carbon fibers with thermoplastic fibers resulted in
massive breakage of the carbon fibers. See paragraphs 10 and
14 of the declaration. As an expert in the field of
technology in question, Warren also opined that even had this
procedure been successful, the mixed fiber product would not
have been linearly intermixed, but entangled. In response,
the examiner contends that because carbon fibers are well
known to be extremely brittle, one skilled in the art would
have modified Warren’s experiment by reducing the entanglement
jet velocities while lengthening the treatment path to reduce
the forces on the carbon fibers. According to the examiner,
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