Appeal No. 2004-1150
Application No. 09/924,490
In light of the foregoing, we shall sustain the standing
rejection of claims 1, 13, 18, 38 and 52 as being anticipated by
Dawes, it being noted with respect to claim 18 that Dawes discloses
in Table 2 that friction stir welding could be used in the
attachment of special alloy skins.
The Obviousness Rejection
Turning to the rejection of claims 1, 13, 14, 18, 20, 37-39,
41, 43, 45, 50, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59 and 66 as being unpatentable
over Ellzey in view of Thomas, the following comprises our findings
of fact with respect to the scope and content of the prior art and
the differences between the prior art and the claimed subject
matter.
Ellzey discloses a spirally wrapped multi-layer structure of
sheet aluminum alloy, which may comprise an aircraft fuselage or
wing section (column 1, lines 7-50). Although Ellzey expresses a
preference for working with only two sheets to construct the
structure, Ellzey is not limited in this regard and any suitable
number of parts or pieces can be employed (column 2, lines 50-58).
In the preferred construction, a first sheet A and a second sheet B
are wrapped into a tubular structure with the sheet A forming the
exterior or skin of the structure and the sheet B forming the
interior or lining of the structure (column 2, lines 63-69). In so
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