Appeal No. 1999-1136
Application No. 08/771,373
essentially no penetration of molten aluminum." From this,
Mr. Mariner concludes that "high density PBN is clearly
superior to low density PBN relative to useful life and is
unexpected."
In In re Soni, 54 F.3d 746, 751, 34 USPQ2d 1684, 1688
(Fed. Cir. 1995), the Court stated:
Mere improvement in properties does not always
suffice to show unexpected results. In our view,
however, when an applicant demonstrates
substantially improved results, as Soni did here,
and states that the results were unexpected, this
should suffice to establish unexpected results in
the absence of evidence to the contrary.
In the present case, Mr. Mariner states that the result of his
test was unexpected, but in our view there is no demonstration
of substantially improved results. At the most, all that the
test shows is that the low density PBN failed prior to the
high density PBN of the claimed invention. However, there is
no indication of how much the life of the high density PBN
would be relative to that of the lower density PBN. As far as
the test is concerned, it appears that a boat coated with
high-density PBN might have a life only one "flash" longer
than the life of a boat coated with lower-density PBN; in
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