Appeal No. 1996-2718 Application No. 08/221,207 This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. ' 134 from the final rejection of claims 1-4, 6-8, and 10, all the claims remaining in the application. Claim 1, the only independent claim, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal and reads as follows: A method of producing flexible fibers of a superconducting material, comprising: melting a superconducting material in a furnace containing a heating space; heating the melted superconducting material to a temperature above its melting point to form a stream of melted superconducting material; dropping the stream of the melted superconducting material into a vertically extending barrel of a nozzle; heating a fiberizing gas to a temperature ranging from 150EF to 750EF; blowing the heated fiberizing gas downwardly through the barrel of the nozzle at a sufficient rate to transform the dropped superconducting material in the barrel into fine ligaments which cool and solidify in the barrel to form flexible superconducting fibers; and collecting the flexible superconducting fibers. The references relied upon by the examiner are: Walz et al. (Walz) 3,283,039 Nov. 1, 1966 Wagner et al. (Wagner) 4,676,815 Jun. 30, 1987 Bock et al. (Bock) 5,047,391 Sept. 10, 1991 (filed Aug. 18, 1989) Rejections A. Under 35 U.S.C. ' 112, first paragraph, claim 4 is rejected as not having support in the originally filed specification for the invention as now claimed. B. Under 35 U.S.C. ' 112, second paragraph, claims 1-4, 6-9, and 10 are rejected as indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the appellants regard as January 31, 1991 and now abandoned. 2Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007