Appeal No. 2003-0688
Application No. 09/324,889
examiner, we determine that the examiner's position is baseless.
We therefore reverse this rejection.
II. The Art Rejections
On pages 6 through 10 of the brief, appellants set forth
their arguments regarding each of the art rejections. Common to
each of the arguments for each rejection is that Kitayama does
not teach the claimed conductive contacts. Kitayama is used in
each of the rejections for this teaching, and hence, we need only
focus on the issue of whether the applied prior art teaches the
claimed conductive contacts.
As an initial matter, we find that appellants define the
word "conductive" in the specification on page 7, beginning at
line 9, as meaning "to include conductive bulk material or a
semi-conductive or non-conductive material which is rendered
conductive by a conductive coating or a conductive electrical
path formed therethrough or thereon." On page 7 beginning at
line 16, the specification discloses
[m]aterials which can be used to advantage include, for
example, conductive materials such as aluminum,
titanium, beryllium, stainless steel, and semi-
conductive materials such as SiC, titanium-doped
alumina, alumina-SiC composites, carbon-doped AIN, SiN,
BN, boron, and other wear resistant and/or conductive
or semi-conductive materials.
Hence, the term "semi-conductive" is mutually exclusive of
the term "conductive".
On pages 2 through 3 of the answer, the examiner asserts
that Kitayama's aluminum silicon carbide composite can be formed
so as to be electrically conductive because appellants'
specification on page 7 discloses that the blade and contacts can
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