Appeal No. 1999-2313 Application No. 08/396,288 pages 3-4). Appellants argue that the cited references do not describe or suggest the existence of an anisotropy with respect to critical current in high T copper oxide c superconductors. All the claims require a high Tc superconductive copper oxide material having a critical supercurrent anisotropy. Appellants also argue that there is no teaching or suggestion to use this critical current anisotropy to determine the direction of supercurrent flow through the structure (brief). The examiner responds that the mere discovery of an existing property of known superconductive copper oxide materials would not be patentable. The examiner finds that appellants’ invention would have been expected by one of ordinary skill in the art (answer, pages 5-6). We agree with the position argued by appellants. All of the claims recite a superconductive copper oxide material having a crystallographic structure with parallel Cu-O crystallographic planes extending therein sufficient to create a critical supercurrent anisotropy in the conductor and the use of this anisotropy to 8Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007