Appeal 2007-1852
Application 10/936,925
2. Claim 17 under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as unpatentable over Seth in
view of Howard, Benoit, and Matarese.
ISSUE
The Examiner contends that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to have modified Seth’s
MCrAlY cold spraying process to include the abrasive oxides or abrasive
carbides disclosed by Benoit. Appellants contend that the Examiner has
failed to establish the requisite teaching, suggestion, or motivation for this
modification within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 103. The issue for us to
decide is: Has the Examiner identified sufficient factual basis in the prior art
to establish that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to
combine Seth and Benoit in the manner claimed?
For the reasons discussed below, we answer this question in the
affirmative.
RELEVANT FINDINGS OF FACT
1) The cold gas dynamic spray process is referred to as a "cold
gas" process because the particles are mixed and applied at a
temperature that is well below their melting point. The kinetic
energy of the particles on impact with the target surface, rather
than particle temperature, causes the particles to plastically deform
and bond with the target surface. Therefore, bonding to the HPT
component surface takes place as a solid state process with
insufficient thermal energy to transition the solid powders to
molten droplets. (Specification [0014]).
2) In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the MCrAlY
powder includes one or more alloys with M being Ni, Co, or
3
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