Appeal No. 2004-0140
Application No. 10/154,729
The entitlement of an application to an earlier filing date extends only to that
which is disclosed in prior application, and does not extend to subject matter which
is not disclosed, but would be obvious over what is expressly disclosed. Lockwood
v. American Airlines, Inc., 107 F.3d 1565, 1572, 41 USPQ2d 1961, 1966 (Fed. Cir.
1997); Vas-Cath Inc. v. Mahurkar, 935 F.2d 1555, 1563-64, 19 USPQ2d 1111,
1117 (Fed. Cir. 1991)(“[T]he applicant must also convey to those skilled in the art
that, as of the filing date sought, he or she was in possession of the invention. The
invention is, for purposes of the ‘written description’ inquiry, whatever is now
claimed.”) . In the present case the Appellants, in the provisional application, have
indicated that the only methods for bonding the first material to the second material
are the shrink fit and the diffusion bond technique. Specifically, the provisional
application states “There are currently two methods used to bond the two materials.
The first is a shrink fit design using the differences in thermal heat expansion
between the sputtering material and the commercial grade Aluminum alloys. The
differences are enough to create a bond, which can sustain substantial shear stress.
The second and safe method is to diffusion bonding the two materials creating a
strong chemical bond.” Appellants’ further description of the bonding methods
disclose, in order to achieve proper bonding, specific criteria for the machined (i.e.
formed) metallic materials. Specifically, the machined metallic materials must have
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