Ex parte MICALE et al.

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Oct 22, 1998

08471664 (B.P.A.I. Oct. 22, 1998)

Application for patent filed June 6, 1995. According to the appellants, the1
application is a division of Application 07/964,533, filed October 13, 1992, now U.S.
Patent No. 5,560,102, issued October 1, 1996.
1
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today (1) was not written for
publication in a law journal and (2) is not binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 12
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
__________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
_________
Ex parte ANTONIO C. MICALE and DAVID E. STRAND
__________
Appeal No. 97-3714
Application 08/471,6641
___________
ON BRIEF
___________
Before STONER Chief Administrative Patent Judge, and STAAB and McQUADE,
Administrative Patent Judges.
McQUADE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Antonio C. Micale et al. appeal from the final rejection of claim 1, the only claim
pending in the application.
The invention relates to an airplane fuselage panel which is defined in claim 1 as
Appeal No. 97-3714
Application 08/471,664
2
follows:
1. An airplane fuselage panel, comprising:
a sheet having peripheral edges routed on routing surfaces, while said sheet is held
immobile on a fixture, using a routing end effector carried by a precision computer
controlled robot that is directed to the routing surfaces using a digital dataset taken directly
from digital engineering part definition records, said sheet having coordination holes
drilled while on said fixture using a drilling end effector carried by said precision computer
controlled robot that is directed to drilling locations using said digital dataset taken directly
from said digital engineering part definition records to accurately locate said hole locations
relative to said peripheral edges; and
parts, including stringers, stringer clips and shear ties, each having coordination
holes drilled by computer controlled drills at locations that will match with corresponding
coordination holes in said sheet, so that said parts will be accurately located in positions
called for in said digital engineering part definition records when said coordination holes in
said parts and said coordination holes in said sheet are aligned and said parts are riveted
to said sheet in said accurately located positions.
The references relied upon by the examiner as evidence of anticipation and
obviousness are:
Robinson et al. (Robinson) 4,310,132 Jan. 12, 1982
Sarh 4,967,947 Nov. 6, 1990
Ross et al. (Ross) 5,165,829 Nov. 24, 1992
Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by
Robinson, and under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Sarh in view of Ross.
Reference is made to the appellants’ brief (Paper No. 10) and to the examiner’s
final rejection and answer (Paper Nos. 4 and 11) for the respective positions of the
appellants and the examiner with regard to the merits of these rejections.
Appeal No. 97-3714
Application 08/471,664
3
As indicated above, claim 1 recites an airplane fuselage panel comprising, inter
alia, a sheet having coordination holes, and
parts, including stringers, stringer clips and shear ties, each having
coordination holes . . . at locations that will match with corresponding coordination
holes in said sheet, so that said parts will be accurately located . . . when said
coordination holes in said parts and said coordination holes in said sheet are aligned
and said parts are riveted to said sheet.
Thus, claim 1 requires the airplane fuselage panel recited therein to include stringer clips
having coordination holes at locations that will match with corresponding coordination
holes in the sheet so that the stringer clips will be accurately located when the coordination
holes therein are aligned with the coordination holes in the sheet and the stringer clips are
riveted to the sheet.
In short, it is not apparent, nor has the examiner even attempted to explain, how the
disclosure of Robinson or the combined disclosures of Sarh and Ross teach or would have
suggested an airplane fuselage panel meeting these claim limitations. Although the
Robinson reference pertains to an airplane fuselage panel having a skin 12 and stringer
clips 24, it does not disclose any holes in the skin or stringer clips which might be
characterized even remotely as coordination holes of the sort recited claim 1. Similarly,
while the Sarh reference relates to the construction of an airplane fuselage panel, it does
not describe the panel as having any stringer clips. Finally, the Ross reference pertains to
an end-effector routing apparatus and makes no mention of airplane fuselage panels.
Appeal No. 97-3714
Application 08/471,664
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Thus, the examiner’s determination that the subject matter recited in the appealed
claim (1) is anticipated by the teachings of Robinson and (2) would have been obvious in
view of the combined teachings of Sarh and Ross is not well taken. Accordingly, we shall
not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) and 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections of this claim.
The decision of the examiner is reversed.
REVERSED

BRUCE H. STONER, JR. Chief )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
LAWRENCE J. STAAB )
Administrative Patent Judge ) APPEALS AND
)
) INTERFERENCES
)
JOHN P. McQUADE )
Administrative Patent Judge )
JPM/pgg
Lawrence W. Nelson
Appeal No. 97-3714
Application 08/471,664
5
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