Appeal No. 97-2486
Application No. 08/308,983
close tolerances) is of concern (see column 1, line 10) and
(2) expressly teaches that the particular investment casting
process of his invention is especially useful in order to
overcome prior art problems of pitting when casting stainless
steels of the Type 400 series (see column 1, lines 13-23),
which stainless steels (as we have noted above) are among
those used by Eggers. In our view, the artisan would have
found it obvious to utilize the well known investment casting
process, such as that taught by Horton, to cast the end
effectors of Eggers. The artisan would particularly have been
motivated to utilize Horton's investment casting process to
cast Eggers' end effectors in order to achieve Horton's
suggested advantage of "precision"
casting (i.e., casting to close tolerances) and expressly
stated advantage of avoiding problems of pitting when casting
Type 400 stainless steels.
As to the appellants' contention that the use of an
investment casting process results in the unexpected result of
eliminating the need for forging, extensive machining,
abrasive blasting and pickling, these same results are
achieved by die casting (in general) as disclosed by Eggers.
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