Appeal No. 1997-3696 Page 5
Application No. 08/473,419
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the [Miyazaki] process by the teachings of the
[Matsuo] reference to use a flexible graphite liner in order to create a uniform temperature in the
vessel.” (Answer, page 3).
We agree with appellant that the combined descriptions of Miyazaki and Matsuo do not fairly
suggest the method recited in claim 61. What Matsuo describes is a sheet made by, for example,
compression or roll forming a material constituted of graphite particles (col. 1, line 52 to col. 2, line 15).
As shown in Figure 7, the graphite sheet material 21 is interposed between an upper quartz crucible 20
and a lower graphite crucible 19 (col. 4, lines 40-47). The sheet material serves to protect the
underlying graphite crucible and assures a uniform temperature distribution, mitigates thermal impact
and diminishes the expansion and contraction stresses due to the difference between quartz and
graphite in coefficient of expansion (col. 4, lines 62-68). These are all good reasons for including a
flexible graphite sheet between crucibles of differing materials, but a reason, suggestion or motivation to
substitute a coating of carbon on a quartz crucible with a flexible cloth is lacking. The examiner
indicates that one of ordinary skill in the art would have used a flexible graphite liner in the process of
Miyazaki in order to create a uniform temperature in the vessel. However, it is not clear why a coating
of carbon would have been expected to have a less uniform temperature distribution than a flexible
sheet of graphite.
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