Appeal No. 1999-1084
Application No. 08/818,051
we agree with appellants that there is no disclosure in
Lippmeier of a failsafe system, we note that at page 4, lines
1 to 5 of their specification, appellants disclose that
(emphasis added):
The nozzle actuating system and nozzle is
therefore typically provided with a hydraulic
failsafe position using actuating ring actuators
to fully retract and in the case of a vectoring
ring to set the nozzle in a fixed unvectored
position so that thrust of the engine is not
vectored.
It therefore appears that, at the time appellants’ original
application was filed, the art recognized the desirability of
including a failsafe system for the actuators of the vectoring
ring of an axisymmetric vectoring exhaust nozzle of the type
disclosed by Lippmeier.
Nevertheless, we do not consider that it would have been
obvious to modify the Lippmeier apparatus by using the system
of the French patent therein as proposed by the examiner
(presumably by using the actuator shown in Fig. 1 to 4 of the
French patent in place of Lippmeier’s actuators 90). It is
fundamental that "[o]bviousness cannot be established by
combining the teachings of the prior art to produce the
claimed invention, absent some teaching or suggestion
8
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