Appeal No. 2005-0891 Page 5
Application No. 09/916,566
Kar, which is directed to a similar deposition manufacturing process wherein a material
“such as metal, ceramics and the like powder, and wire, and the like, is delivered to a
laser beam-material interaction region where it is melted and deposited on a substrate”
(abstract). See Figure 1. Kar discloses that,
[a]lthough the preferred embodiments describe using CO2
laser and Nd:YAG lasers, the invention can use other high
power lasers (i.e. Nd-based solid state lasers), and diode
lasers, and the like. The invention works with continuous
and pulsed lasers that supply sufficient intensity for material
melting [column 8, lines 44-49].
Kar evidences that the use of diode lasers for heating and melting metal or the
like powder material in a direct metal deposition system and process was well known in
the art at the time of appellants’ invention and that diode lasers would have been
recognized by those of ordinary skill in the art as having sufficient power and absorption
to melt the powder material used to form a melt pool in Jeantette. We therefore agree
with the examiner that the combined teachings of Jeantette and Kar would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art the use of a diode laser to heat the powder
material used to form the melt pool in Jeantette’s system and method.
The appellants argue on page 3 that Jeantette’s system “is not a system that
monitors a physical attribute.” We do not agree. The temperature in the deposition
region monitored by the optical pyrometer of Jeantette is a “physical attribute.”
Finally, the appellants argue that the control of the laser output power by a beam
attenuator, as disclosed by Jeantette, does not constitute “modulating” the laser to
control the power of the beam. This argument appears to be grounded on a definition of
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