Appeal No. 98-2457
Application No. 08/851,312
In addition, on page 8 of the answer, the examiner has
made the further determination that
If it is determined that Jin et al. does
not fairly suggest "hot-plastic deformation",
then one having ordinary skill in the art would
have found it obvious to subject the composite
body thereof to hot plastic deformation in order
to more easily
deform the metal pipe, since it is the
state of the art to subject metal to hot-
plastic deformation during a wire forming
operation, as evidenced by Fig. 15-15 of
"Powder Metallurgy".
After reviewing the teachings of Jin, we must agree with
appellants that the mere fact that Jin (col. 5, line 33, to
col. 6, line 11) may disclose the possibility of cross section
reducing steps that can occur "either at room temperature or
at some other (typically elevated) temperature" and relatively
slow cooling of the sintered article from 700º-950º C to a
temperature in the range of 300º-700º C, would not appear to
have been fairly suggestive to one of ordinary skill in the
art at the time of appellants’ invention of the particular
processes set forth by appellants in the claims before us on
appeal. With regard to independent claim 28, there is nothing
in Jin or in Metallurgy which would have been suggestive of a
8
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