Appeal No. 1998-1917
Application No. 08/766,984
1986); In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788
(Fed. Cir. 1984); and In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1052, 189
USPQ 143, 147 (CCPA 1976).
With respect to independent claim 1, the Examiner, as the
basis for the obviousness rejection, proposes to modify the
superconducting cable structure disclosure of Kikuchi which
describes a plurality of tape-shaped superconducting wires
spirally wound on a former. As recognized by the Examiner,
Kikuchi lacks a teaching of providing a plurality of
superposed layers of wires, as well as a layer of tape-shaped
insulating material, having a thermal contraction rate “at
least three times” that of the superconducting wires,
surrounding the superconducting wires. To address these
deficiencies, the Examiner turns to Sato which, in the
illustrated Figure 2 embodiment, binds a plurality of
superconducting wires 6 to a former 5 with insulating Teflon
tape. In the Examiner’s view, the skilled artisan would have
been motivated and found it obvious to provide a Teflon
insulating tape as taught by Sato around the superconducting
wires of Kikuchi “to enhance the binding of the
superconducting wires to the former.” (Answer, page 4).
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