Appeal No. 2003-1941
Application No. 09/981,100 Page 4
together (answer, page 3).1 Indeed, at page 1 of appellant’s
specification, the applied APA describes the use of a pickling
step involving an acid wash to backstrip or remove oxides from
the surface of components that are to be bonded together to form
a fan blade.
In an attempt at remedying the acknowledged deficiency in
the teachings of the applied APA relative to the here claimed
subject matter, the examiner additionally relies on Groll.2
Groll discloses a bonding method for making articles, such as
cookware or electrical conductors, wherein a thin layer of
aluminum is applied to a surface of at least one of two
dissimilar metals that are to be joined together. The examiner
refers to lines 30-37 of column 2 of Groll, wherein Groll
discloses that:
1 In other words, the examiner takes the position in the
rejection advanced in the answer that the applied APA removes all
of the oxide layer prior to the washing and bonding steps.
Indeed, if this were not the case, the APA would appear to
represent an anticipatory disclosure of the subject matter of at
least claim 1. Moreover, appellant has not disagreed with that
interpretation of the APA by the examiner. See, e.g., the last
sentence of the first full paragraph at page 5 of the brief.
2 While the examiner adds Porter to Groll and the APA in a
separate rejection of dependent claims 4-7, the examiner has not
explained how Porter would make up for the above-noted difference
in the method of independent claim 1 and the APA.
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