Appeal No. 2006-1631
Application No. 10/317,759
(the preferred matrix material) and, based on these
properties, determine whether Spitsberg’s 50 volume
percent of BSAS falls within the range of “from about
40 to about 60% of a CMAS-reactive material” of claim 35
(and other claims so limited).
In this regard, we note that The General Electric Company
is the assignee of both the patent to Spitsberg and the instant
application and that the patent and application share a common
inventor. Thus, appellants are obliged to come forward with
information in their possession or reasonably available to them
on the properties of the materials mentioned above to assist the
examiner in this determination. See 37 CFR § 1.56 (2005).
Option No. 2: Consider whether claim 35 (and other
claims correspondingly limited) should be rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Spitsberg in
view of Eaton.
We note that Eaton (U.S. Patent No. 6,254,935) teaches that
a thermal barrier layer can comprise “between about 20 to 60
weight % barium strontium aluminosilicate” (col. 3, lines
49-51). In light of this teaching, the examiner should consider
whether claim 35 (and other claims so limited) would have been
obvious over Spitsberg in combination with Eaton.
Option No. 3: Even if Spitsberg’s 50 volume percent
of BSAS does not fall within the range of “from about
40 to about 60% of a CMAS-reactive material” of claim
35 (and other claims so limited), consider whether it
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