Appeal No. 1996-4176
Application No. 08/287,915
from the claimed subject matter in the absence of tin. It
further differs from the claimed subject matter in the
presence of lead as set forth supra.
The examiner relies upon the teaching of Kempf for both
the omission of the lead component and the presence of tin.
Kempf discloses that aluminum alloys may be machined when two
or more of the elements, lead, tin, thallium, cadmium or
bismuth are present in the aluminum alloy. See column 2,
lines 9-12. The examiner further relies upon the disclosure
of Kempf at page 1, column 2, line 54 through, page 2, column
1, line 5, that,
[T]he total amount of free machining elements should
not be less than about 0.05 per cent since below
this amount there is scarcely any advantageous
effect. We have determined that a maximum limit of
about 6 per cent total of two or more of the free
machining elements is sufficient for satisfactory
commercial results...
It is the examiner’s position that inasmuch as Kempf
discloses the combination of two or more of the “free
machining” elements selected from the group composed of lead,
tin, thallium, cadmium and bismuth, it would have been obvious
to the person having ordinary skill in the art to omit the
presence of lead and include the presence of tin. See Answer,
5
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