Appeal No. 1999-1718
Application 08/786,742
Along these lines, the examiner stresses that “appellants have
not provided any proof that the range is critical, or provided
evidence that the claimed range provides new and unexpected
results” (answer, page 16).
The examiner’s reliance on In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454,
105 USPQ 233 (CCPA 1955) to support the appealed rejections is
not well taken.
Aller stands for the principle that the discovery of an
optimum value of a variable in a known process is normally
obvious. In re Antonie, 559 F.2d 618, 620, 195 USPQ 6, 8-9
(CCPA 1977). Exceptions to this general rule lie in cases
where the results of optimizing a variable, which was known to
be result effective, were unexpectedly good or where the
parameter optimized was not recognized to be a result-
effective variable. Id.
The record in the present case shows that the appellants
recognized the spacing between the forward reaches of a pair
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