Court Opinion

ID: 9452304
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:36:34.687998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:09.447625
License: Public Domain

KIRKPATRICK, Judge
(dissenting).
I would affirm. I am aware that what constitutes undue experimentation on the part of one seeking to take advantage of the knowledge of the prior art and the teachings of the application for patent is a matter of judgment. In this case, though I am very reluctant to disagree with the majority on such a matter, I feel that I must.
*896The majority opinion refers extensively to the teachings of the application concerning the refractory body made entirely of disilicide and seems to assume that one skilled in the art would consider these teachings applicable to a body composed of beryllia or alumina bound together with disilicide — a proposition not to be found in the specification. This may be a reasonable assumption, but it is nevertheless no more than that. It seems to me that if this is the fact the application should teach it. Actually it teaches away from it, at least in respect of temperature.
There are three variables all of which would have to be coordinated in order to produce the body containing alumina or beryllia.
The first variable is the amount of disilicide binder which may be “up to” about 25 per cent. As the examiner (affirmed by the board) pointed out, experimentation would be required to find the minimum.
As to the second and third variables, the application discloses with respect to the binding of disilicide alone that there is a pressure-temperature relationship. The limits for both pressures and temperatures are given, but the desirable combination of specific temperature and pressure is not disclosed other than to say that the mid-range of pressures is preferred with temperatures from 2700 to 3000° F. This teaching, as has been mentioned, is more or less assumed by the majority to be applicable to a body containing disilicide and alumina or beryllia as well. This may be so, but it would require experiment to determine it and, in view of the wide ranges of pressures and temperatures involved, perhaps many experiments. However, the majority recognizes the fact that the temperatures preferred for the disilicide body alone are not applicable to the body containing beryllia and alumina. The application specifies that the temperature used for molding such bodies should be above that used for the disilicide alone. This leaves in doubt whether the temperature should be above 2600° F., the minimum used with an undisclosed pressure for the disilicide, or above 3100° F., the maximum used for the same body.
Again, the majority narrows the ranges of temperatures by assuming that, since the specification refers to a test where the refractory body was heated to 3800° F. at atmospheric pressure, the hot-press temperature was lower. This may be so, but it is again an assumption.
I do not suggest that any of the assumptions of the majority opinion may not be in accordance with the facts, but it does not appear in the application whether or not they are, nor does the record show that one skilled in the art would make the same assumptions. In that respect, the present case differs markedly from In re Honn, so heavily relied on by the majority. It may be that if there were only one area of uncertainty the range of experimentation required would not be of such magnitude that the specification would fall short of the requirements of the first paragraph of § 112, but with three variables involved I believe that it does.