Appeal No. 1999-1663
Application No. 08/715,221
plus numerous pages of attachments to discuss the
differences between the claimed surface waves vs.
the taught surface waves of Thompson et al (“836”).
Therefore, it seems as if “surface waves” are
critical to Appellant’s invention, yet very little
mention was made of said waves in claim 1, (ie the
independent claim in which all of said arguments
addressed). It is of the Examiner’s opinion that the
Appellants’ are reading much more in to [sic] claim
1, and specifically the surface waves than the
chosen claim language warrants.
At the outset, we find that the specification describes a
“surface wave” (page 7) as “a surface wave which propagates
through the surface layer of the test piece,” and (pages 8 and
18) as “a surface wave propagating in the surface layer of the
test piece.” In addition, the specification (page 32)
discloses that “[t]he surface layer stress evaluation unit 63
evaluates the stress in the surface layer of the test piece
based on the acoustic velocity of the surface wave . . . .”
We are in agreement with the appellants (brief, page 17) that
Thompson (‘836) is directed to (col. 3, lines 36-38) a
transverse or shear wave that travels through the thickness of
the test block 3 to the opposite face and reflected back to
the transducer. Thompson (‘836) states (col. 3, lines 21-36)
that
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