Appeal No. 2000-0821
Application 08/886,504
have suggested the claimed process to one of ordinary skill in this art (brief and reply brief in
entirety). Indeed, we, like appellants, cannot find the combination of treating a component
having a particular bond coat in a cooling hole with caustic solution so as to attack a chemical
bond between a ceramic layer and the bond coat, followed by treatment with a fluid stream
discharge such that the ceramic coating of the cooling hole will be removed without removing
the bond coat therein. Because the process of Ault only cleans the debris from a cooling hole
“without attacking or damaging the coatings or base metal of the articles” (e.g., col. 1, ll. 60-63;
see also col. 2, ll. 42-43), the examiner correctly finds that the only place that one of ordinary
skill in this art would add the process of McComas to that of Ault is in the “second step
(stripping the old external coating)” of the “total process of repairing a gas turbine blade”
(answer, page 5 as numbered from unnumbered page 1; see also Ault, col. 2, ll. 40-41 and
43-44). However, McComas does not disclose either the bond coat or the use of a chemical
solution in a manner to attack a chemical bond between the bond coat and ceramic layer as
required by the appealed claims.
Accordingly, it is inescapable that the combined references applied by the examiner taken
as a whole would not have resulted in the claimed method. Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp.,
837 F.2d 1044, 1050-54, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1438-41 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
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