Appeal No. 1997-0540
Application No. 08/209,847
evincing, that insulation of the prior art would inherently
possess the bond characteristic in question. Ex parte
Skinner, 2 USPQ2d 1788, 1789 (1986).
Under these circumstances, we cannot sustain the
examiner's § 103 rejection of product claim 9 as being
unpatentable over Ardary in view of Lespade or Bendig and
Thompson.
We reach a different conclusion regarding the process
claims on appeal. Although these claims require the presence
of a metal powder, they contain no recitation which requires
that the metal powder perform a bond-creating function. Thus,
the metal powder requirement of the appealed process claims is
satisfied by the applied prior art suggestion of providing
ceramic insulation with metal powder functioning as an
opacifier. As for the appellants' apparent belief that the
aforementioned provision would not have been suggested by the
applied prior art, such a belief plainly is contrary to the
teachings of Ardary (e.g., see lines 52 through 62 in column
2) in combination with Thompson (e.g., see lines 49 through 52
in column 6).
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