Appeal No. 2007-1530
Application 10/095,112
albeit less desirable, to employ a lower volume percentage of ceramic material
when using the composite material to make a disk substrate. That is, it would have
been reasonable for the artisan to assume that Pyzik’s choice of 70 volume percent
as the lower end of the preferred range was based in part on the properties, such as
specific stiffness, that determine the suitability of the composite material for
making a disk substrate. Also, Pyzik’s disclosure of (1) a range of volume
percentages for the ceramic material, (2) a range of densities for the Al—B—C
composite material (i.e., preferably from about 2.58 to about 2.7 -- col. 7, ll. 44-
47), and (3) ranges for the other properties listed in Figure 3 suggests that the
volume percentage of the ceramic material is a result effective variable. Thus, an
artisan desiring to replacing the pure aluminum in the connector housing of the
Admitted Prior Art with one of Pyzik’s less dense Al—B—C composite materials
would have varied the relative volume percentages of ceramic and metal
constituents in order to experimentally determine which percentages yield Al—
B—C composite materials suitable for use in making an electrically conductive
connector housing. These experiments prima facie would have included reducing
the volume percentage of ceramic to 60 percent, which is sufficient to satisfy claim
2, or to some other value between 30 percent and 60 percent, which is also
sufficient to satisfy the claim. As a result, Appellants’ use of experimentation to
determine that the ceramics grains preferably should be present in a volume
percentage from 30 to 60 (Specification 13:8-13) is consistent with rather than
contrary to a conclusion of obviousness.
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