Appeal No. 2003-1941
Application No. 09/981,100 Page 6
Appellant relates that the conventional wisdom associated
with the applied APA is that the component surface oxide layer(s)
are removed since “[t]his oxide coating is conventionally
believed to interfere with obtaining a good bond ...”
(appellant’s specification, page 1, third paragraph, lines 6-9).
Given that state of the art, as reported by appellant in
the application specification, the examiner has not fairly
explained why one of ordinary skill in the art would have been
led to modify the APA based upon the teachings of Groll in a
manner so as to leave an oxide surface layer on the components to
be bonded despite the conventional thinking of one of ordinary
skill in the art, as discussed above and in appellant’s
specification. This is especially so since the examiner has not
convincingly addressed how the teachings of Groll with regard to
using pure aluminum in the bonding of dissimilar metals in
forming cookware and electrical contacts would have furnished one
of ordinary skill in the art with both a suggestion and a
reasonable expectation of success in achieving a good bond for
the hollow fan blade product contemplated by the APA while
leaving oxides on the mating surfaces of the components.
Rejections based on § 103(a) must rest on a factual basis
with these facts being interpreted without hindsight
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