The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 04/06/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1- 2, 4-8, and 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Landwehr (US 2017/0073278) in view of Kirby et al. (US 20190071769 A1).
Re claims 1, 4-7, and 21, Landwehr discloses article comprising substrate 12 and environmental barrier coating (EBC) 14 comprising bond layer 16 (corresponding to claimed bond coat) directly on the substrate, environmental barrier coating (EBC) layer 18 (corresponding to claimed reactive layer) directly on the bond layer, and overlay layer 20 (corresponding to claimed EBC layer) [18-19, Figure 1]. The substrate 12 comprises ceramic, ceramic matrix or metal alloy [20]. The bond layer 16 (bond coat) includes silicon, i.e. silicon metal [24]. The EBC layer 18 (reactive layer) can be made from only rare earth monosilicate, i.e. up to 100 vol% [25]. The overlay layer 20 (EBC) is made from rare earth disilicate [29]. The “rare earth” would include all rare earth elements including ytterbium.
Given that Landwehr discloses article as claimed, in response to oxidation to at least a portion of the silicon of the bond coat to form silicon dioxide, the article would necessarily inherently function the same in response, i.e. at least a portion of the rare earth monosilicate of the reactive layer would necessarily inherently be configured to react with at least a portion of the silicon dioxide to form a converted layer comprising a rare earth disilicate where rare earth monosilicate is necessarily inherently greater than rare earth monosilicate in the converted layer and the bond coat layer would necessarily inherently have a second thickness and a thermally grown oxide layer that would necessarily form on the bond coat.
In light of the overlap between the article as claimed and that disclosed by Landwehr, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use an article that is both disclosed by Landwehr and encompassed within the scope of the present claims and thereby arrive at the claimed invention.
Further Re claims 1 and 23, that the reactive layer is free or essentially free of silicate glass, Landwehr does not disclose completely; however analogous art Kirby discloses refractory layers [44] that don’t disclose using glass that are suitable that do not wet out with the liquid silicon-phase material used in similar [47-48] articles.
It would have been obvious at the time of the effective filing date to have modified the refractive layer to not include silicate glass for the material of Kirby, free of silicate glass to ensure the layer does not wet out liquid silicon phase material.
Re claim 2, the EBC 18 (reactive layer) has a thickness of 25-200 microns [25].
Re claim 8, Landwehr discloses that the EBC coating 14 provides other functions including as an abradable coating [18] and further discloses that overlay layer 20 (EBC layer) can comprise a plurality of sub-layers [19]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to include additional sub-layers in the overlayer 20 including those that function as an abradable coating in order to further protect the article.
Re claim 22, Landwehr discloses that the EBC 18 (reactive layer) can also include rare earth monosilicate [25].
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection above. Further note “consisting essentially of” is considered an open claim. See the new rejections above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2018/0079687 (Kirby) Kirby teaches silicon-based coatings that include a B-containing compound generally provided for use in environmental barrier coatings for ceramic components ({{1), and that in embodiments, the substrate is formed from a CMC.
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TAMRA L. DICUS
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1787
/TAMRA L. DICUS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1787
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