Appeal No. 96-0661
Application 08/189,833
of the known prior art. Appellant acknowledges that the filter
(e.g., 18 of Fukuda) constructed of a honeycomb structure of
porous ceramic material and the microwave absorption materials
therein (e.g., 29) are heated by being irradiated with
microwaves, but urges that such materials are not heated to a
temperature in the vicinity of 1000ºC because the usual
microwave absorption materials are not stable at such a high
temperature. Fukuda (translation, page 11) indicates that the
microwave absorbing material therein is comprised of
"at least one type of metallic oxide of zinc, copper,
manganese, cobalt, iron, tin, or titanium, complex
metallic oxide that has a perovskite crystal structure,
or silicon carbide."
To address the particular material of construction of the
heating element in appellant’s claim 1 on appeal, the examiner
turns to Matsubara and notes that this patent teaches that it
is well known in the art of microwave heating to use a
microwave absorption heating element that is mainly made of
carbon powder, alumina powder and silicon carbide powder in
proportions preselected to provide an operating temperature
within the claimed range of "about 30ºC to about 2,000ºC."
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