Appeal No. 97-3714
Application 08/471,664
follows:
1. An airplane fuselage panel, comprising:
a sheet having peripheral edges routed on routing surfaces, while said sheet is held
immobile on a fixture, using a routing end effector carried by a precision computer
controlled robot that is directed to the routing surfaces using a digital dataset taken directly
from digital engineering part definition records, said sheet having coordination holes
drilled while on said fixture using a drilling end effector carried by said precision computer
controlled robot that is directed to drilling locations using said digital dataset taken directly
from said digital engineering part definition records to accurately locate said hole locations
relative to said peripheral edges; and
parts, including stringers, stringer clips and shear ties, each having coordination
holes drilled by computer controlled drills at locations that will match with corresponding
coordination holes in said sheet, so that said parts will be accurately located in positions
called for in said digital engineering part definition records when said coordination holes in
said parts and said coordination holes in said sheet are aligned and said parts are riveted
to said sheet in said accurately located positions.
The references relied upon by the examiner as evidence of anticipation and
obviousness are:
Robinson et al. (Robinson) 4,310,132 Jan. 12, 1982
Sarh 4,967,947 Nov. 6, 1990
Ross et al. (Ross) 5,165,829 Nov. 24, 1992
Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by
Robinson, and under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Sarh in view of Ross.
Reference is made to the appellants’ brief (Paper No. 10) and to the examiner’s
final rejection and answer (Paper Nos. 4 and 11) for the respective positions of the
appellants and the examiner with regard to the merits of these rejections.
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