Appeal No. 1999-0787
Application No. 08/813,953
Although the appellant’s specification (page 19) states that the
film is transparent and nonporous, the specification does not
indicate that the claimed method is limited to one which produces
a metal oxide film having these characteristics.
Regarding utility, a predecessor of our appellate reviewing
court stated in In re Langer, 503 F.2d 1380, 1391, 183 USPQ 288,
297 (CCPA 1974):
[A] specification which contains a disclosure of
utility which corresponds in scope to the subject
matter sought to be patented must be taken as
sufficient to satisfy the utility requirement of § 101
for the entire claimed subject matter unless there is
reason for one skilled in the art to question the
objective truth of the statement of utility or its
scope.
The examiner argues that the appellant’s claimed method
cannot work because glass cannot be vitrified at temperatures as
low as 200ēC or below (answer, page 4). In support of this2
argument the examiner relies upon Kondo, which discloses making a
porous silica gel plate by a sol-gel method and then calcining
the plate at a temperature of as least 900ēC to render it
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