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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aghajanian (US 8128861) (2012) hereafter (Agh).
Regarding claims 1 and 13, Agh teaches infiltrating a ground ceramic body with molten silicon. The ceramic comprising silicon carbide and graphite or free carbon powder (see background reference to Popper (U.S. Pat. No. 3,275,722)). The surface is then polished as claimed (See claims, figures description Examples).
Regarding claims 6 and 20, Agh teaches removing excess silicon infiltrates (by extrusion) to avoid beads of silicon forming on the surface (see column 26 to 27). .
Regarding claim 12, and claims to the ground ceramic being less than 4 thousandths of an inch one of ordinary skill would understand that the desire to create adequate surface areas for bonding and infiltrating was the reason for grinding the ceramic in the first place.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the relevant time of filing to provide adequate bonding between the metal and carbon to form carbides.
Regarding claim 14, Agh further teaches that carburizable resin may be added (see Taylor reference within Agh and column 28).
Agh does not teach the level of polishing or porosity but does teach forming an initial porous body before infiltrating with silicon and polishing.
Regarding claims 2-5, 7-11, and 15-18 and 20, given substantially the same process with substantially the same composition one of ordinary skill would expect the same results or; alternatively, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the relevant time of filing to provide the level of polishing, and or porosity as there appears no technical limitation to provide the claimed polishing or porosity and the art recognizes providing as final porosity and polished surface and the level of polished would be obvious to provide dependent upon desired need and application.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL H MILLER whose telephone number is (571)272-1534. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 9-6.
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/DANIEL H MILLER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1783
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