Appeal No. 1999-1136
Application No. 08/771,373
boat would meet all the limitations of claims 1 and 2, those
claims would not be patentable notwithstanding the fact that
appellants may have discovered that a boat as claimed therein
would have a longer than average life, since it is well
settled that "recognition of latent properties in the prior
art does not render nonobvious an otherwise known invention."
In re Baxter Travenol Labs., 952 F.2d 388, 392, 21 USPQ2d
1281, 1285 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
However, assuming arguendo that the 2000° C. temperature
taught by Basche would not produce a coating having a density
in the range of 2.19 to 2.2 gm/cc, we do not consider that the
declaration of Mr. Mariner establishes the criticality of that
range. In paragraph 6 of the declaration, Mr. Mariner
describes a test in which two PBN samples, one having a
density of 2.19-2.20 g/cm (Fig. B1) and the other having a3
density of 2.00-2.10 g/cm (Fig. B2), were subjected to a3
molten aluminum environment for an unspecified length of time.
The low density sample (Fig. B2) showed an exfoliated pattern,
the same as exhibited by flash evaporators which were tested
using aluminum metal charges until failure occurred (Figs. A1,
A2 and A3), whereas the high density sample (Fig. B1) "shows
7
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