Appeal No. 2006-0340
Application No. 10/089,315
concerned, the spraying of zinc coatings onto a surface" (page 23
of Answer, first paragraph).
Appellant maintains in the Reply Brief that Hasui does not
teach forming an alloy coating but "zinc fine particles and
aluminum fine particles randomly piled on one another so that they
appear to a form zinc-aluminum alloy" (page 4 of Reply Brief,
fourth paragraph). However, although Hasui refers to a pseudo
alloy, it reasonably follows that since both Hasui and appellant
employ the same process of twin wire thermal spray by electric
arc, both coatings produced would be of the same basic nature.
Also, significantly, none of the present claims on appeal requires
a coating of zinc alloy. We note that the appealed claims recite
that the second wire is zinc or a zinc alloy.
We note that appellant bases no argument upon objective
evidence of nonobviousness, such as unexpected results, which
would serve to rebut the inference of obviousness established by
the applied prior art.
We further note that claim 27, which defines the second wire
as a zinc/copper alloy, has not been rejected under § 103.
Consequently, we remand this application to the examiner to
consider rejecting claim 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over the
combined teachings of Goldheim, Hatfield and Hasui. Goldheim
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