Appeal No. 2000-1850
Application 09/098,822
otherwise that may be afforded by the written description contained in the applicant’s
specification.”); In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321-22, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989)
(“During patent examination the pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms
reasonably allow. When the applicant states the meaning that the claim terms are intended to
have, the claims are examined with that meaning, in order to achieve a complete exploration of
the applicant’s invention and its relation to the prior art. See In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1404-
05, 162 USPQ 541, 550-51 (CCPA 1969) (before the application is granted, there is no reason to
read into the claim the limitations of the specification.).”
When the claim so interpreted is compared with Petrak, it is apparent that the dispositive
issue in this appeal is whether this reference would have led one of ordinary skill in this art to
heat a cured shape comprised of the ceramic matrix precursor of Petrak and the interfacial coated
crystalline silicon carbide non-oxide fibers of Moore to a temperature of greater than 1450°C to
1800°C for a time effective to convert the ceramic matrix precursor into a ceramic matrix
composite comprised of phases of beta silicon carbide and optionally beta silicon nitride. The
examiner, without reference to supporting evidence, contends that the “[d]etermination of the
specification heating temperatures would have been well within the realm or routine
experimentation to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention” because
“[t]hese parameters would have obviously been selected to optimize the process conditions
and/or the properties of the final product” (answer, page 5). Appellant submits that Petrak
discloses that “polymer ceramification is carried out at a temperature in the range of at least
1000°C, preferably 1200°” and “does not teach the conversion of the ceramic matrix precursor
into a crystal containing ceramic” (brief, pages 4 and 5). The examiner responds that Petrak
discloses “converting the preceramic polymer to a ceramic” which “would produce a crystalline
material,” alleging, without supporting reference, that “[c]eramic is defined as a material which
is crystalline or partially crystalline.” We could not find a definition of “ceramic” in chemical
and general scientific dictionaries that support the definition that the examiner assigns to the
term.
We, like appellant, find no objective teaching, suggestion or motivation in Petrak, alone
or in combination with Moore, or any other evidence in the record, which would have led one of
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