Appeal No. 2006-1176
Application No. 09/926,202
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. In re
Peterson, 315 F.3d 1325, 1329, 65 USPQ2d 1379, 1382 (Fed. Cir.
2003)(“In cases involving overlapping ranges, we and our
predecessor court have consistently held that even a slight
overlap in range establishes a prima facie case of
obviousness.”). This is especially true in this case since both
Wijaranakula and Wolf recognize that the oxygen content and the
epitaxial layer deposition temperature are result effective
variables as indicated above. See In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272,
276, 205 USPQ 215, 219 (CCPA 1980)(“[Discovery of an optimum
value of a result effective variable in a known process is
ordinarily within the skill of the art.”); In re Aller, 220 F.2d
454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955)(“[W]here the general
conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not
inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine
experimentation.”). Moreover, the fact that the epitaxial layer
taught by Wijaranakula contains no nucleation sites or nuclei to
form microdefects as indicated supra evinces that it is
necessarily deposited at the conventional deposition temperature
of greater than 1000o C. Compare the appellant’s admission at
page 9 of the Brief and Wijaranakula, column 2, lines 1-7, with
Wijaranakula, column 3, lines 16-17.
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