Appeal No. 1999-0544 Page 6
Application No. 08/324,842
acknowledges that neither Honjo nor Portner describe such a step of fire-cleaning (Answer at 8).
However, the Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to use a temperature
treatment step described in Akoh in the process of Honjo because of the reasonable expectation
of similar results (Id. at 9). The problem is that the temperature treatment step of Akoh is not a
fire-cleaning step, it is a sintering step.
Sintering is not the same as fire-cleaning. Sintering is a method of forming the ceramic
substrate whereas fire-cleaning is a step of treating an already formed substrate. The fact that
Akoh sinters at temperatures within the range recited in the claim does not transform the
sintering process into a fire-cleaning process. Akoh provides little evidence that fire-cleaning as
claimed was obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention.
The Examiner also states that “it is well known in the art to ‘pretreat’ a substrate which is
going to be subsequently coated so as to achieve a ‘clean’ surface thereby increasing the adhesion
of the coating to the substrate” and further states that “[c]leaning by heating ... is well known and
conventional in the art.” (Answer at 12; see also Final Rejection at 10). We take this statement
as fact as it remains unchallenged. However, we regard facts found in such a manner with an eye
toward narrowing the scope of any conclusions to be drawn therefrom. See In re Ahlert, 424
F.2d 1088, 1091, 165 USPQ 418, 420-21 (CCPA 1970).
The Examiner’s statement does not establish that it was well known to fire-clean a
substrate at temperatures of about 800 °C to about 1500 °C, the statement establishes only that
some sort of heating to clean was well known. There is insufficient evidence on the record
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