Appeal No. 1998-1917
Application No. 08/766,984
7), neither Kikuchi nor Sato discloses that “contact between
superconducting layers is improved by insulating tapes having
the prescribed contraction rate.” Further, Appellants contend
(Reply Brief, page 3) that, since Sato is concerned with
insuring that the superconducting wires and the former are
structurally integrated so as to expand and shrink at the same
rate, there is no motivation to use an insulating material
layer with a higher contraction rate than the superconducting
wires.
After careful review of the applied Kikuchi and Sato
references, we find Appellants’ arguments to be unpersuasive,
and we agree with the Examiner’s position as stated in the
Answer. In our opinion, the skilled artisan, although
Kikuchi’s disclosure is silent on the subject, would be
generally motivated by the need to bond the superconducting
wires of Kikuchi to the former structure and, in our view,
would have been logically led to employ the binding techniques
disclosed by Sato including the Figure 2 Teflon tape
embodiment. Since the evidence of record (e.g. Reply Brief,
page 3) indicates that Teflon material has a thermal
contraction rate of approximately six times that of the silver
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