Appeal No. 2004-1881
Application No. 09/623,681
Reference is made to appellants’ main and reply briefs and to
the second final rejection and examiner’s answer for the respective
positions of appellants and the examiner regarding the merits of
this rejection.
Discussion
The portion of appellants’ specification relied upon by the
examiner as AAPA is set forth on page 3 of the second final
rejection and on page 3 of the answer and need not be reproduced
here. There appears to be no dispute that AAPA sets forth a method
of assembling a structure comprising all the steps recited in claim
1, in the order set forth in the claim, with the exception that the
shim material recited in the positioning step does not involve
positioning a shim material comprising one of a film and sheet of
preformed shim material. Instead, the positioning step of AAPA
involves positioning a shim material comprising “a filled, two
component liquid adhesive material, with aluminum added to it”
(specification, page 2, lines 2-3). To account for this
deficiency, the examiner turns to Thomas.
Thomas is directed to a moldable shim material for dimensional
and aerodynamic surface control of an aerospace structure. With
reference of Figure 1 and column 2, lines 45-59, Thomas discloses a
method of assembling a structure that comprises the steps of
3
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