Appeal No. 1999-1084
Application No. 08/818,051
supporting the combination." ACS Hospital Systems, Inc. v.
Montefiore Hospital, 732 F.2d 1572, 1577, 221 USPQ 929, 933
(Fed. Cir. 1984) (footnote omitted). The actuator disclosed
in the French patent Figs. 1 to 4 is simply an arrangement of
two pistons 2, 4 within a cylinder such that the piston rod 3
which is connected to the object being actuated may be
displaced to two predetermined intermediate positions (Figs. 2
and 3) as well as the end positions (Figs. 1 and 4). There is
no disclosure in the French patent that any of these positions
is a failsafe position. With regard to aircraft gas turbine
engines having an exhaust nozzle of the type claimed,
appellants’ above-quoted disclosure indicates that in the
typical (known) failsafe system, the actuating ring actuators
are in the fully retracted position when in the failsafe mode;
there is no teaching or suggestion in Lippmeier that the
failsafe position of the actuators (vectoring actuators 90)
should be a partially retracted position between the fully
extended position and the fully retracted position, as recited
in independent claims 1 and 15. In view of the lack of any
such teaching or suggestion in the applied prior art, the
examiner’s combination of Lippmeier and the French patent
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