Appeal No. 97-2228
Application 08/509,259
The references relied upon by the examiner as evidence of
anticipation and obviousness are:
Parkes 4,162,136 Jul. 24, 1979
Rimkunas et al. (Rimkunas) 5,407,321 Apr. 18, 1995
(filed Nov. 29, 1993)
Claims 1 through 4 and 10 through 12 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Rimkunas, and claims 5
through 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Rimkunas in view of Parkes.
Reference is made to the appellants’ brief (Paper No. 10)
and to the examiner’s answer (Paper No. 14) for the respective
positions of the appellants and the examiner with regard to the
merits of these rejections.
Turning first to the standing 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) rejection,
anticipation is established only when a single prior art
reference discloses, expressly or under principles of inherency,
each and every element of a claimed invention. RCA Corp. v.
Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ
385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
Rimkunas discloses an airfoil vibration damper. Although
the damper is specifically described for use with hollow stator
vane airfoils disposed in the compressor section of a gas turbine
engine, Rimkunas indicates that the damper can be utilized in
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