Appeal No. 2004-1622
Application No. 09/431,178
The item relied on by the appellants as evidence of non-
obviousness is:
The 37 CFR ' 1.132 Declaration of Rolf Dittmann filed January 24,
2002 (Paper No. 11).
THE REJECTION
Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. ' 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Howald.
Attention is directed to the main and reply briefs (Paper
Nos. 23 and 26) and the answer (Paper No. 24) for the respective
positions of the appellants and the examiner regarding the merits
of this rejection.1
DISCUSSION
1 In the answer (see page 6), the examiner asserts that the orifices of the instant
application (and presumably those set forth in claim 1) are inherently elliptical. This
assertion appears to be based on an assumption that the cooling passage orifices are
disposed on the airfoil of a turbine blade. Claim 1, however, is not so limited. The
underlying specification describes the turbine blade shown in the drawings merely as an
example of the sort of component addressed by the appellants, and indicates that
portions of the exemplary turbine blade other than the airfoil, such as the blade platform,
may contain cooling passages.
3
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