Appeal No. 2001-0058 Page 3
Application No. 281,815
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the
appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
Independent claim 1 is directed to a method for creating discrete clouds of burning
matter which can be utilized for military countermeasures purposes to protect aircraft and
other vehicles against infrared heat-seeking hostile missiles and light radiation devices
such as laser weapons. The objective is to dispense from the vehicle a cloud of burning
matter that has the same radiation signature as the vehicle propulsion means, so that any
weapon is disposed to focus upon the cloud of burning material rather than the vehicle. As
manifested in claim 1, the method comprises the steps of withdrawing from the fuel tank of
the vehicle for which the protection is intended a quantity of the fuel used in the propulsion
means of the vehicle, passing this fuel to a dispenser, gelling the fuel by adding a gelling
agent, passing the gelled fuel through a plurality of openings in an apertured plate to
change it into particulate form, the passing through being at a rate and pressure that will
impart momentum sufficient to project the particles away from the dispenser such that the
particulate gelled fuel is expelled from the vehicle in the form of a discrete cloud of
particles, and igniting the cloud in the dispenser prior to its expulsion from the vehicle to
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