Appeal 2007-0136
Application 90/006,222
ascertained, and the ordinary level of skill in the art resolved. Objective
evidence of the circumstances surrounding the origin of the claimed subject
matter (so-called secondary considerations) may also be relevant. Such
secondary considerations guard against the employment of impermissible
hindsight.15
Scope and content of the prior art
Newman discloses an arc hardfacing tube with filler including metal
carbide particles. Newman places some of the carbide particles inside an
insulating coating and uses additional carbide particles outside the insulation
to increase "carbide survivability" during the melting involved in applying
the hardfacing composition.16 Other components of the filler might be flux
and bonding agents blended with the carbides. The carbides may be
tungsten, titanium, tantalum, niobium, zirconium, vanadium, hafnium,
molybdenum, chromium, silicon, and boron carbides, or mixtures or cement
composites of these.17 Filler carbide particles may be macrocrystalline,
crushed-sintered, and cast.18 Cast carbide particles used for coatings may be
crushed or spherical.19
The examiner found that read together, the specification teaches in
excess of 60% by weight carbide.20 Newman's Table 5 shows the
15 Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17, 36 (1966), cited with approval
in KSR Int'l v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S. Ct. 1727, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). The
record on appeal does not contain objective evidence of secondary
considerations.
16 Newman 3:10-39.
17 Newman 4:34-42.
18 Newman 5:6-44 and 13:21-26.
19 Newman 6:33-42.
20 Ans. 5.
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