Appeal No. 1997-3884
Application No. 08/712,240
The prior art references relied upon by the examiner are:
Anderson et al. (Anderson) 4,104,345 Aug. 01, 1978
Nishigaki et al. (Nishigaki) 4,621,066 Nov. 04, 1986
Burn 4,766,027 Aug. 23, 1988
Claims 15, 16, 21-24, and 31-33, 35, 36, and 41-43 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable for obviousness over Anderson in view of Nishigaki et al.
(Answer, page 2).
Claims 25-27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable for
obviousness over Anderson, in view of Nishigaki, and further in view of Burn. (Answer,
page 2).
OPINION
After careful consideration of the issues raised in this appeal and with arguments
of both appellants and the examiner, we find that the examiner’s rejection of claims 15
and 16 is sustainable. However, with regard to the other claims, we find the rejections
are not sustainable. Our reasoning follows.
The pivotal consideration concerns the aspect of appellants’ invention with
respect to the provision of ionic species in a ceramic slurry, wherein the ionic species are
selected from the group consisting of boron compounds in their ionic form and
phosphorus compounds in their ionic form.
Appellants’ specification discusses on page 5, beginning at line 16, that the ionic
species can be provided in one of two ways. One way is by adding boron in its ionized
form or phosphorus in its ionized form, to the slurry. Another way is by adding nonionic
phosphorous or nonionic boron to the slurry (e.g., adding phosphorus or boron in the
form of P2O5 and B2O3, or adding phosphorus and boron as part of a glass composition,
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