Appeal No. 2003-0455
Application No. 09/438,969
repairable vanes that would otherwise be scrapped, the
service life of the repaired nozzle segment is not
prolonged very long because it contains used vanes that
are limited in the number of future repairs that can be
made. Furthermore, this technique is viable only as long
as suitably complementary salvaged vanes are available to
combine.
The Rejection
Claims 1-18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over AAPA.2
The examiner’s rationale is found on page 3 of the initial
office action (Paper No. 5, mailed January 4, 2001), wherein the
examiner states:
. . . [T]he only difference between this method [i.e.,
the repair method of AAPA] and applicants[’] method is
that applicant[s] use[] a new vane for the second vane
instead of using two salvageable vanes. However, it is
considered that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art a[t] the time the invention was
made to modify the method as taught by AAPA, by using a
new vane inplace [sic] of one of the used vanes since any
one would know that to achieve a longer service life it
would be desirable to use a new part rather than a used
part.
2In the body of the answer on page 4, the examiner also
referred to prior art reference 6,154,959 (presumably U.S. Patent
6,154,959), but that patent has been given no consideration since
it was not positively included in the rejection. Ex parte Raske,
28 USPQ2d 1304, 1304-05 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1993); In re Hoch,
428 F.2d 1341, 1342 n.3, 166 USPQ 406, 407 n.3 (CCPA 1970).
3
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