Appeal No. 1996-3859
Application No. 08/278,910
Accordingly, we affirm the rejection of these claims.
However, we reverse the rejections of the other claims.
Vanneste ‘472 discloses a process for manufacturing a
pearlitic steel wire and avoiding the formation of martensite
and bainite in the wire (col. 3, lines 5-9; col. 2, lines 20-
25). The wire can have a diameter of about 1.5 to 5 mm (col.
3, lines 53-55). In one embodiment the wire is heated and
then cooled by stable film boiling in water and further cooled
in air, and transformation to pearlite occurs in the air a few
meters after the wire leaves the water bath (col. 6, lines 27-
37 and 46-47). Thus, as shown in figure 3 of Vanneste ‘472,
there is a pre-transformation cooling stage in which cooling
by stable film boiling and by air cooling take place. The
wire used to obtain figure 3 had a diameter of 3.10 mm (col.
6, line 11). However, the teaching that suitable wire
diameters include smaller values down to about 1.5 mm (col. 3,
lines 53-55) would have fairly suggested, to one of ordinary
skill in the art, applying the process of this embodiment to
wire diameters as small as about 1.5 mm.
Appellants rely upon an article by Takeo and declarations
by Lefever, Meersschaut and Aernoudt for teachings of
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007