Appeal No. 2001-2449
Application No. 08/637,802
page 5).1 Appellant does refer to the Declaration under 37 CFR
§ 1.132 by Bernhard (copy attached to the Brief) as support for the
alleged “lack of predictability” (Brief, page 6). However, as
noted by the examiner (Answer, paragraph bridging pages 9-10), no
such support can be found in the Bernhard Declaration and appellant
has not pointed to any specific page and line.
Appellant argues that Rateau teaches away from the use of
silicon in silver alloy compositions because silicon is insoluble
in silver and thus results in brittle alloys (Brief, page 6). This
argument is not well taken since Rateau merely teaches the
differing effects of silicon and germanium in silver-copper alloys,
while also teaching the addition of germanium to ensure that the
alloy does not become brittle, thus teaching the use of both
silicon and germanium (Answer, page 10, citing Rateau, page 3, ll.
26-29).
For the foregoing reasons and those set forth in the Answer,
we determine that the examiner has established a prima facie case
1Appellant cites a reference in support of this contention
on page 2 of the Reply Brief but fails to make this reference of
record. Furthermore, the quoted portion of this reference does
not support appellant’s contention that the teaching of Rateau
should not be applied to the similar silver-copper alloys of
Bernhard, i.e., that minor amounts of silicon and zinc additives
render the teachings of a germanium additive in Rateau
“unpredictable.”
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