Appeal 2007-2618
Application 10/713,178
hand-held laser welding wand, such as the laser welding assembly disclosed
by Onodera, would have been within the ordinary skill in this art. This
person would have had a reasonable expectation of solving the problem of
attaching such a shield to that assembly, which is all that the limitations of
claim 15 require as we interpreted this claim above.
Turning to claim 26 as well as claims 12 and 24, which specify the
laser reflection shield contain sensors which sense the proximity of the
shield to the workplace and produce a signal accordingly, one of ordinary
skill in this art would have found such sensors providing a proximity
feedback function on the laser reflective shields of Onodera regardless of the
shape of the shield. Thus, this person would have reasonably used such
sensors in laser reflection shields such as those disclosed by Onodera and
Messer Griesheim, in the reasonable expectation of obtaining proximity
information which is all that the limitations of claim 26 require as we
interpreted this claim above. Indeed, we find that Onodera’s Examples
illustrating laser light reflective shields having proximity sensors attached to
a hand-held laser welding assembly satisfy each of the limitations of claim
26, leading to the conclusion that the claimed hand-held laser fusion welding
assembly encompassed by this claim lacks novelty which is the “ultimate
obviousness.” In re Fracalossi, 681 F.2d 792, 794, 215 USPQ 569, 571
(CCPA 1982). Claims 12 and 24 include the limitations of claims 1 and 15
on which they respectively depend, and thus in addition to our findings and
determinations with respect to the independent claims, we further determine
that the inclusion of proximity sensors in the laser reflection shields as
reasonably suggested by Onodera would have been within the ordinary skill
in the art.
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