Appeal No. 94-1325
Application No. 07/882,928
some additional, unclaimed and unmentioned step, it is difficult
to imagine how a vapor space could be formed in the process of the
instant claims and not in the process of Gnanamuthu et al".
As developed more fully below, we reach the conclusion
that the language of method claim 5, when understood in light of
the underlying disclosure, does address subject matter not
suggested by the evidence of obviousness.
The method of repairing cracks in the metal of a rail of
a railway track or a wheel of a rail vehicle, as set forth in
Claim 5, requires, inter alia, generating at least one intense
beam of energy capable of generating a vapour space in the metal,
vaporising metal within the rail or wheel in the vicinity of the
cracks to form a vapour space extending at least 5 mm into the
rail or wheel, and depositing an alloying material within the
vapour space.
We share the examiner's viewpoint that the collective
teachings of the applied prior art would have been suggestive of a
method of repairing cracks in the metal of a rail of a railway
track
5
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