Appeal No. 98-0028
Application No. 08/455,912
points out that these are product-by-process limitations. Be
that as it may, the appellant has acknowledged that “[t]he
flow drill process is a well-known process,” and cites two
patents as evidence of such in his specification (page 5). As
explained in one of these patents (No. 4,428,214), this
technology is used for making “rimmed or bossed holes in metal
workpieces” such as gas pipe by heating the metal of the
workpiece (column 1). Moreover, the examiner cites Hoogenboom
as an example of the use of flow drill technology for forming
holes in sheet material, and Hoogenboom describes his
invention as producing “holes having a collar, in metal sheet
or metal tube walls” (column 1, lines 5 and 6, emphasis
added). It therefore is our view that one of ordinary skill
in the art would have known that flow drill technology is
usable to form holes in completed hollow structures, such as
the fuel tank disclosed by Robinson, which is equipped with a
reinforced opening 38 that has been installed by means not
specified in the reference. Suggestion for the use of flow
drilling in forming such an opening is found in the self-
evident advantages thereof, which would have been known to the
artisan, such as the lack of necessity for additional separate
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