Appeal No. 2002-1600
Application 09/350,858
The ceramic dispersoid claimed in the appellants’ claims 18
and 21 would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the
art for the reasons given above in the discussion of the
rejection of claim 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Also as discussed
above regarding the rejection of claim 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103,
Nagle would have fairly suggested, to one of ordinary skill in
the art, a ceramic dispersoid having, as the second phase
particles, vanadium carbide as recited in the appellants’
claims 20 and 23, scandium carbide as recited in the appellants’
claim 22, and molybdenum carbide as recited in the appellants’
claim 25.2
2 In the event of further prosecution, the examiner and the
appellants should address on the record 1) whether claim 20,
wherein the metal carbide particles can be ZrC particles, is
properly dependent from claim 18 wherein “selected from the group
consisting of Sc, Hf, Nb, Mo and V” limits the metal carbide
particles to carbide particles of those metals. See Manual of
Patent Examining Procedure § 2111.03 (8th ed. 2001), and
2) whether claim 21, which recites that the matrix metal is
aluminum or aluminum alloy, is properly dependent from claim 18
which requires aluminum as a matrix metal.
8
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