Appeal No. 1996-3859
Application No. 08/278,910
step is carried out alone does not render a process patentable
(answer, page 4). In support of this argument the examiner
relies upon In re Fortress, 369 F.2d 1009, 152 USPQ 13 (CCPA
1966). In that case the court considered combining two
process steps, each lending to the end product the desirable
properties each was known to produce when practiced alone, to
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. See
369 F.2d at 1017, 152 USPQ at 19. That is not the fact
situation in the present case. Because the examiner has not
explained why the teaching of Vanneste ‘472 would have fairly
suggested, to one of ordinary skill in the art, the multiple
water cooling and air cooling steps recited in claim 19, we do
not find the examiner’s argument to be persuasive.
The examiner also relies upon Vanneste ‘472 in
combination with Hoffmann. Hoffmann discloses multiple steps
of water cooling and air cooling a hot rolled rod during a
pre-transformation stage (col. 3, lines 1-41). Hoffmann
teaches that hot rolled rods usually have a diameter of 5 to
12.7 mm (col. 1, lines 34-35) and that during the cooling
8
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