Appeal No. 1999-1190
Application 08/481,367
13" (page 8). JP ‘200 does not disclose the power density of
the laser beam.
The examiner argues that the JP ‘200 method must be using
the appellants’ power density because in the JP ‘200 method,
the examiner argues, “the laser beam is melting and scattering
or ‘ejecting’ the melted portion of the clad layer” (answer,
page 7). The actual disclosure relied upon by the examiner in
this argument is that quoted in the preceding paragraph.
The examiner apparently considers each of “vaporizes” and
“scatters” in the relied-upon portion of JP ‘200 to refer to
different material, some of the melted material vaporizing and
some of it scattering, the scattered portion corresponding to
the appellants’ directly ejected melt pool liquid. In our
view, the proper interpretation of “[a] portion ... vaporizes
and scatters” is that the portion both vaporizes and scatters,
i.e., the vaporized material scatters and the non-vaporized
material is blown off by the high-speed gas stream. We do not
find in the reference a suggestion to scatter, without use of
the gas stream, material which has not vaporized, i.e., to
directly eject laser-generated melt pool liquid from the
surface as required by the appellants’ claims.
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