Appeal No. 99-1962
Application 08/671,463
U.S. 1057 (1968).
Turning to the specifics of the standing § 103 rejection,
the examiner’s contention on page 5 of the answer that “one
skilled in the art would have been well aware of the fact that
such square-edged flow elements are prone to aerodynamic
losses and accompanied by phenomena such as the trailing edge
vortices shown in appellants’ Figure 6” is without foundation
in the applied Butler reference. The thrust of Butler is the
eccentric detent 150 for retaining the retainer 125, and not
the structure of the flange of the fuel nozzle guide 105.
Butler does not voice any concern whatsoever for the
construction of the flange of the fuel nozzle guide 105, much
less any ribs thereon, or the particular shape of the trailing
ends of the ribs, to promote the flow of cooling air. Also,
the examiner’s further contention on page 5 of the answer that
appellants’ invention “is nothing more than a classic
engineering tradeoff between cost and performance” is likewise
flawed because it inappropriately assumes that the ordinarily
skilled artisan would consider making the trailing ends of the
ribs arcuate according to “conventional streamlining
techniques” as a performance enhancing modification. For all
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