Appeal No. 2000-0821
Application 08/886,504
and 13 through 17, 19 and 202 further in view of the state of the prior art admitted by appellants
in the specification (background of the Invention). For the reasons pointed out by appellants in
the brief, the examiner has failed to make out a prima facie case with respect to both grounds of
rejection.
We find that, when considered in light of the written description in the specification as
interpreted by one of ordinary skill in this art, see, e.g., In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1372, 54
USPQ2d 1664, 1667 (Fed. Cir. 2000); In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023,
1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997), In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321-22, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir.
1989), the plain language of appealed claim 1 requires that the claimed method comprises at least
the steps of removing a thermal-insulating ceramic layer bonded to a component having a cooling
hole through a specified bond coat, from said component including the cooling hole, by (1)
subjecting the ceramic layer to a caustic solution “at a temperature and pressure sufficient to
cause the caustic solution to attack a chemical bond between the ceramic layer and the bond coat;
and [(2)] then removing the portion of ceramic layer from the cooling hole by directing into the
cooling hole a fluid stream” as specified, such that the latter step does not remove the bond coat
from the wall of the cooling hole.
A prima facie case of obviousness is established by showing that some objective
teaching, suggestion or motivation in the applied prior art taken as a whole and/or knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art would have led that person to the claimed
invention as a whole, including each and every limitation of the claims, without recourse to the
teachings in appellants’ disclosure. See generally, In re Rouffet, 149 F.3d 1350, 1358, 47
USPQ2d 1453, 1458 (Fed. Cir. 1998); Pro-Mold and Tool Co. v. Great Lakes Plastics Inc., 75
F.3d 1568, 1573, 37 USPQ2d 1626, 1629-30 (Fed. Cir. 1996); In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1265-
66, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84 (Fed. Cir. 1992); In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d
1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992); In re Laskowski, 871 F.2d 115, 10 USPQ2d 1397 (Fed. Cir. 1989);
In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074-76, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598-1600 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
We agree with appellants that the combined teachings of Ault and McComas would not
2 Answer, pages 3-8 as numbered from unnumbered page 1.
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