Appeal No. 1999-1663
Application No. 08/715,221
appropriate measurements for deriving the stress information.”
Thompson (‘081) additionally states (col. 7, lines 36-37) that
this embodiment utilizes “horizontally polarized shear waves.”
While Thompson (‘081) characterizes this embodiment as
utilizing shear waves, we take Official Notice that the phrase
“horizontally polarized shear waves” refers to a Love wave, 2
which the appellants have defined in Attachment “E” as a
surface wave. Accordingly, we find that Thompson (‘081)
teaches the use of a surface wave which propagates in a
surface layer of a test piece.
However, Thompson (‘081) does not make up for the
deficiencies of Thompson (‘836). We find that although the
three arrays of transducer sets disclosed in Figure 4 of
Thompson (‘081) disclose each array to be positioned at a
different angular orientation (col. 6, line 48 et seq.), that
Thompson (‘081) does not teach evaluating the stress at loaded
portions based on a difference in acoustic velocities of a
2 IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, June 1970, US, Vol. 13,
Issue No. 1, pp. 269-270, sets forth that “Acoustical waves, discovered by
Love, propagating a layer on a substrate are defined as horizontally polarized
shear waves . . .” A copy of the text of the document is attached to this
decision.
14
Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007