Appeal No. 2002-0928
Application 09/315,251
thermally sprayed. Appellants' claim 1 does not recite any
particular "liquid medium" or any particular "nanostructured
material" for use in their method.
As the examiner admits at page 4 of her answer, Gitzhofer does
not disclose: (1) ultrasound dispersion; (2) the particle size
required for the nanostructured particles; or, (3) the
nanostructured materials. Indeed, Gitzhofer is not directed to the
formation of nanostructured coatings but only to coatings of "small
particles" of undefined size or character. What Gitzhofer means by
small is not entirely clear from their disclosure but at column 5,
lines 26 through 30 it is disclosed that the rate of deposition
using Gitzhofer's method is as high as 20 :m per minute. Thus, it
appears that the most reasonable interpretation of Gitzhofer is
that they use particles with sizes on the order of microns and
obtain coatings several microns thick. Gitzhofer improves the
properties of the coating by preparing the particles to be coated
as a dispersion in a liquid or semi-liquid carrier rather than
injecting the particles into the plasma flow as a powder.
Ozaki is directed to preparing ceramic microspheres wherein
ceramic powders are dispersed in water using ultrasound to form a
suspension and the therein obtained suspension dispersed in a high
boiling liquid as droplets. As the water is removed the dispersed
suspension in said high boiling liquid begins to form spherical
particles. After water is removed, the high boiling liquid
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