Appeal 2007-1434
Application 10/610,718
Pursuant to our authority under 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) we enter the following
new grounds of rejection. Claims 1-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph, for failing to enable a person skilled in the art to make or use the
invention without undue experimentation. Specifically, Appellants have not
enabled one of ordinary skill to make or use the claim limitation of “a thermal
acoustic shield.” Appellants define a thermal acoustic shield as “a thin layer of
flow that partially surrounds the main jet 32 and is characterized by a proper
combination of velocity and speed of sound.” Specification, ¶ 0024.
1. Appellants have not disclosed how to create or generate the thermal
acoustic shield. The Specification contains the following language: the thermal
shield 42 is “created” adjacent the jet engine nozzle. Id. In paragraph 0025, it is
“actuated” along a partial section of the jet nozzle. Also in paragraph 0025, it is
“deployed” and it is also “accomplished fluidically”. Just the use of these terms
raises in our minds the issue that the Specification does not contain a clear and
specific description of how these thermal acoustic zones are created and
maintained.
2. Appellants disclosure does not advance any apparatus or structure that
is useful in creating these thermal acoustic shields. No structure is described in the
written Specification, and certainly no structure is illustrated in Appellants’ drawn
Figures.
3. The lack of enabling disclosure as to the thermal acoustic shield is
further illustrated in that the thermal acoustic shield must have a proper
combination of velocity and speed of sound. There is simply no disclosure of how
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