Appeal 2007-1434
Application 10/610,718
nozzles, and one of ordinary skill can choose to have the nozzles permanently
installed or have them move in an oscillatory manner driven by actuators. As such
these are not fluidic chevrons as recited by Appellants. It does appear that Campos
forms several regions of thin layers of flow around the base of his exhaust stream.
However, we are unable to determine whether these areas of flow are of the
appropriate velocity, speed of sound, or temperature that will characterize these
areas as a thermal acoustic shield. We note that the Examiner at page 4 of the
Answer has some typical values for bypass flow. We presume this is speculation
on the part of the Examiner, for it is certainly not based on any disclosure in the
Campos reference. In the absence of any disclosure in the prior art that these
assertion by the Examiner are applicable to the disclosure of Campos, we must
conclude that the Examiner has not fulfilled his burden of establishing the lack of
novelty based on the Campos reference by a preponderance of the evidence. In
short, we do not find the specific values in the Campos reference that convince us
that these areas denoted in Figures 9 and 11 have appropriate properties of velocity
and speed of sound.
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
The prior art may anticipate a claimed invention, and thereby render it
non-novel, either expressly or inherently. In re Cruciferous Sprout Litig., 301 F.3d
1343, 1349, 64 USPQ2d 1202, 1206 (Fed. Cir. 2002), cert. denied, 538 U.S. 907
(2003). Express anticipation occurs when the prior art expressly discloses each
limitation (i.e., each element) of a claim. Id. In addition, [i]t is well settled that a
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