Appeal No. 1997-2958 13
Application No. 08/401,719
temperatures within appellants’ claimed range. Adjusting the final annealing temperature to insure a
recrystallized structure during superplastic forming would have been a matter of routine
experimentation. In re Aller, 220 F.2d at 456, 105 USPQ at 235.
Note that insuring a recrystallized structure during superplastic forming does not necessarily
require recrystallization during final annealing. Komatsubara’s statement that final annealing is often
effected to insure a recrystallized structure must be read in context. This statement is made
immediately after discussion of recrystallization during superplastic forming. Komatsubara is
only referring to insuring recrystallization during superplastic forming, not insuring
recrystallization during annealing. As pointed out by the examiner, Komatsubara suggests annealing
at temperatures at the lower end of the 35-550°C range and at the lower temperatures a non-
recrystallized alloy plate would be obtained . Given that annealing temperatures and times that5
necessarily result in non-recrystallized structure are specifically taught by Komatsubara, it is not
logical to say that Komatsubara is teaching annealing to insure recrystallization during
annealing.
Claim 4 also requires that the rolled plate be heated at a temperature elevating speed of at least
1°C/sec and, after being maintained at 150 to 250°C for 0 to 5 minutes, be cooled at a cooling speed
5 Appellants’ own lots 6 and 12 perform annealing within the parameters of Komatsubara,
210°C x 0 sec. and 220°C x 0 sec. respectively, and result in non-recrystallized crystal structure. The
totality of the evidence suggests that the recrystallization temperature is somewhere between 220° and
350°C.
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