Appeal 2006-1207
Application 10/354,491
Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), the Examiner presents the following
alternative rejection of claim 15 as well as a first rejection of claims 16, 19,
20, 23 and 24:
While Wilhelm fails to expressly describe the
processing of the steel pipes prior to receiving the
composite joint tapes, there are a series of well
known processing steps such as blasting,
pretreatment (primer application), and pre-heating
(residual heat would be expected to contribute
somewhat to curing of resin) that are extensively
used in the application of protective tape wraps or
laminates to steel pipes, as shown for example by
Dempster (Column 4, Lines 42-50). It is
emphasized that Dempster is directed to the
application of a tape wrap system (to steel pipes)
in order to provide corrosion resistance and while
the reference fails to expressly describe a pipe
weld region, a fair reading of Dempster suggests
that the above noted techniques are applicable to
individual pipes or a welded pipe assembly.
Absent any conclusive showing of unexpected
results, one of ordinary skill in the art at the time
of the invention would have found it obvious to
process the steel pipes in a conventional manner,
such as shown by Dempster, prior to applying the
respective composite tapes in the method of
Wilhelm. It is additionally noted that Wilhelm
does suggest the use of a blasting technique in
order to clean the weld region (Page 11, Example 1
of translation) and thus, Wilhelm expressly
discloses one of the conventional processing
techniques [Answer para. bridging 6 and 7].
Appellant argues that “one of ordinary skill in the art would
understand the materials used, such as resin mixtures, to be specific to the
type of cure desired” (Br. para. bridging 11 and 12) and that “a resin mixture
15
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