Appeal 2007-0118
Application 10/175,612
disclosure is unlikely to be productive of the result
sought by the applicant.
In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 552-53, 31 USPQ2d 1130, 1131 (Fed. Cir. 1994)
(citations omitted).
ANALYSIS
The Examiner has failed to set forth a prima facie case of obviousness
because he failed to explain how Henne teaches or suggests coupling a baseline
trailing edge wedge to a wing, as required in independent claims 1, 2, 11, and 12,
and a trailing edge wedge coupled to a wing structure, as required in independent
claims 6 and 16. While we agree with the Examiner that Allen and Vijgen
demonstrate that it was known at the time of the invention to provide spanwise
modificiations to trailing edges of wings to optimize the aerodynamic properties of
an airfoil (Findings of Fact 9-16), we find that Henne fails to teach or suggest
coupling a trailing edge wedge to a wing and, in fact, Henne teaches away from
such a coupling (Finding of Fact 6). We also find no motivation in the prior art to
modify the airfoil design of Henne by coupling a trailing edge wedge to Henne’s
airfoil (Finding of Fact 8).
REMAND
With regard to claims 1-20, we note that U.S. Patent No. 4,542,868 to Boyd
(“Boyd”) discloses a wedge-shaped flap (20) for attachment to or near the trailing
edge (14) of an airfoil (10) to improve the coefficient of lift and reduce the
coefficient of drag providing an overall increase in fuel economy at cruise
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013