Appeal No. 1999-0978 Page 2
Application No. 08/533,944
THE INVENTION
According to Appellants, the invention relates to a process of thermally treating a rail head to
obtain a fine-pearlite structure while avoiding undesirable hardness of the thinner web portion of the rail
(Brief, page 2). Claim 6 is illustrative:
6. A method for the thermal treatment of a rail head of a rail in which cooling is
carried out, comprising:
immersing said rail head at an initial temperature of above 720EC in a
cooling agent that contains a synthetic cooling agent additive, and
withdrawing said rail head from the cooling agent upon obtaining a
surface temperature of said rail head of between 450 to 550EC
without temperature equalization over the entire cross-section of said rail head.
THE EVIDENCE
As evidence of unpatentability, the Examiner relies upon the following prior art references:
Iwasaki et al. (Iwasaki) 1 55-2768 Jan. 10, 1980
(published Japanese Pat. Application)
Moser et al. (Moser) 1,205,729 Jun. 10, 1986
(Canadian Patent)
Teramoto et al. (Teramoto) 1-290717 Nov. 22, 1989
(published Japanese Pat. Application)
1Unless otherwise noted, references to this document are to the English language translation
provided by The Ralph McElroy Translation Company. The Examiner obtained the translation in
November 1998, a date after the Brief and Answer had been written. As Appellants’ representative
informed us at the oral hearing that a copy of this translation had not yet been received, a copy
accompanies this decision.
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