Appeal No. 1999-1084
Application No. 08/818,051
The appealed claims stand finally rejected under 35
U.S.C.
§ 103 as unpatentable over the following combinations of
references:
(1) Claims 1 to 3, 6 to 8, 10, 11 and 15 to 18, Lippmeier in
view of the French patent;
(2) Claim 12, Lippmeier in view of the French patent, Thompson
and Curties.
Rejection (1)
As stated by the examiner, the basis of this rejection is
(final rejection, pages 2 and 3):
Lippmeier et al. discloses all parts of the
claimed invention (including variable thrust
vectoring axisymmetric exhaust nozzle having a
multi-degree of freedom pivotal flaps, primary
actuating means that operate independent of each
other [see figure 1 and columns 1 and 2], and
vectoring ring 86 that is axially translatable
and tiltable [see column 2] [)], except for the
specific details of the flap attitude actuators
which includes the primary and failsafe piston.
However, French 999,277 discloses a system that
utilizes primary piston 2 and failsafe piston 4
to halt the movement of piston 2.
It would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to use [the] French 999,277
system on Lippmeier et al.’s nozzle vectoring
system to position Lippmeier et al.’s flaps 54
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