Appeal No. 2004-1150
Application No. 09/924,490
airframe components.1 Thus, we conclude that the skilled artisan,
upon consideration of the Dawes disclosure as a whole, would not
have viewed the poor fatigue performance of prior art welding
techniques as an impediment to utilizing friction stir welding to
fabricate structural airframe components, but instead, spurred on
by the express reference in Table 2 of Dawes to the application of
friction stir welding to airframe construction, would has viewed
friction stir butt welding as being an eminently well qualified way
of joining at least some structural airframe components due to,
among other things, its void and crack free nature, high tensile
strength, and fatigue performance that rivals that of the base
metal itself. Thus, we simply do not agree with appellants’
characterization of Dawes (e.g., main brief, page 7) as being
devoid of a teaching of any actual utility for using friction stir
welding to make a structural aircraft component.
1In contrast to that which appellants would apparently have
us believe, the appealed claims do not require that the inventive
method and structure airframe component be utilized in a large
commercial jet airliner setting. Instead, the claims merely call
generally for “a structural airframe component,” which component,
for all the claims require, could be for use in a small single
occupant powered aircraft such as an ultralight aircraft, a hang
glider, or even a small remote-controlled aircraft.
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