DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendment filed on 21 January 2026 has been entered. Claims 2, 8, 11, 15, 17, 18, and 20 are amended. Claims 10 and 16 have been canceled. Claims 1-9, 11-15, and 17-20 are pending. The amended claims and arguments have overcome each and every 112 rejection set forth in the previous office action. Therefore, the previous 112 rejections are hereby withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection(s) of Claims 1-6 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20040243310 (Griffin) have been fully considered and are persuasive.
Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Feiner (US 20200159879).
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection(s) above have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim 1 is original, therefore this office action is made non-final.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1 and 5-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Griffin et al. (hereafter Griffin – US 20040243310) in view of Feiner et al. (hereafter Feiner – US 20200159879).
Claim 1 recites “a method.” Griffin teaches such a method, as will be shown.
Griffin teaches (Figs. 1-22) a method of projecting effects of blade modes onto rotor modes, the method comprising:
receiving, via a processor, a modal domain for an ideal bladed rotor and each blade of an inspected bladed rotor (para. 0195-0196, modal domains for inspected bladed are compared to “benchmark”, of an ideal bladed rotor);
However, Griffin does not teach determining, via the processor, whether a mode in the modal domain is at least one of an isolated mode and within a cluster of modes; analyzing, via the processor, the mode individually in response to the mode being isolated; and analyzing, via the processor, the cluster of modes together in response to the mode being within the cluster of modes.
Griffin teaches determining and analyzing different clusters of modes not an isolated mode (para. 0116, 0201).
Feiner teaches a method of projecting effects of blade modes onto rotor modes wherein individual N modes are determined to be in a cluster of similar frequencies, when separated, such as by a kilohertz in one example (para. 0025).
Feiner further teaches using determining and analyzing isolated modes based on cluster frequency in order to perform faster computations (para. 0025).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to apply the teachings of Feiner to the method of Griffin to have determining, via the processor, whether a mode in the modal domain is at least one of an isolated mode and within a cluster of modes; analyzing, via the processor, the mode individually in response to the mode being isolated; and analyzing, via the processor, the cluster of modes together in response to the mode being within the cluster of modes. Doing so would result in faster computation times, as recognized by Griffin.
Regarding Claim 5, modified Griffin teaches (Figs. 1-22) the method of claim 1, wherein a first modal domain for the ideal bladed rotor is determined from a modal analysis of the ideal bladed rotor (para. 0196).
Regarding Claim 6, modified Griffin teaches (Figs. 1-22) the method of claim 5, wherein a second modal domain for the inspected bladed rotor is determined from a second modal analysis of each blade of the inspected bladed rotor (para. 0195).
Regarding Claim 7, modified Griffin teaches (Figs. 1-22) the method of claim 6.
However, modified Griffin does not teach a first blade of the inspected bladed rotor is modeled in the second modal analysis with a potential repair blend profile.
Feiner teaches a method wherein a first modal domain for the ideal bladed rotor is determined from a modal analysis of the ideal bladed rotor (para. 0032) wherein a second modal domain for the inspected bladed rotor is determined from a second modal analysis of each blade of the inspected bladed rotor (para. 0033-0036), and a first blade of the inspected bladed rotor is modeled in the second modal analysis with a potential repair blend profile (para. 0041).
Feiner further teaches this more accurately predicts the vibrational mistuning of the disk and can be used to evaluate a proposed modification of the before the hardware is actually modified, and to evaluate the actual modification if there is a difference between the proposed and actual modifications (abstract).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art to apply the teachings of Feiner to the method of Griffin to have a first blade of the inspected bladed rotor is modeled in the second modal analysis with a potential repair blend profile, as both references and Applicant’s invention are directed to methods for analyzing an inspected bladed rotor with a potential repair blend profile. Doing so would result accurately predicting repair blend profiles before modifying hardware, as recognized by Feiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8, 9, 11-15, 19, and 20 are allowed.
Claim 2-4, 17, 18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The prior art does not teach wherein the determining whether the blade mode in the blade modes is in the cluster of modes includes calculating a percentage difference between a first natural frequency of the blade mode and a second natural frequency of an adjacent mode in one of the blade modes and the rotor modes.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREW BUI whose telephone number is (571) 272-0685. The examiner can normally be reached on 7:30 AM - 4:30 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Courtney Heinle can be reached on (571) 270-3508. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/ANDREW THANH BUI/Examiner, Art Unit 3745
/COURTNEY D HEINLE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3745
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