Appeal No. 2001-0233
Application 08/668,640
record that minor amounts of silazanes or other components would affect the basic and
novel characteristic of the claimed composition.
Furthermore, claim 1 notes only that the ceramic precursor oligomer has a molecular
weight of a certain amount. It is not restricted to “non-silicon” polymers. Indeed, the
appellants’ own dependent claims expressly claim such polymers (claim 4,
polycarbosilane; claim 5, polysilastyrene). Non-silicon containing ceramics limits only
one category of the particulate material in claim 1. As before, we give the claim
language its broadest reasonable interpretation. The plain language of the independent
claim and the dependent claims undercuts the appellants’ argument. Consequently, as
the appellants have failed to carry the burden of explaining how the language
“consisting essentially of” excludes the organic silicon polymers of Takeda, and the
appellants’ own claims are contrary to this argument, we remain unpersuaded.
The Appellants next argue that the present invention requires the inorganic
powder to have a particle size to be less than ten microns while Takeda teaches that
“particle size is not critical and being from 1 to 30 microns” (Appeal Brief, page 20, lines
22-27; see also Reply Brief, page 2, lines 1-3). While this statement of the Appellants is
true, in the same sentence Takeda also states that the inorganic powder is more
preferably from 1 to 5 microns, which is within the claimed range. Consequently we find
that this argument is also unpersuasive.
We agree with the Examiner that one of ordinary skill in the art would have
regarded the omission of silazane and the selection of the inorganic powder particle
size as obvious given the disclosure of Takeda cited above, including the comparative
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