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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I claims 14-20 in the reply filed on 12/4/2025 is acknowledged.
Claims 1-13 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected claims, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 12/4/2025.
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) 14-15 and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Millard et al. (WO 2012/118516) in view of Nakaoka (JP 2005-008462).
Regarding claims 14 and 17-18, Millard discloses ceramic matrix composite sandwich structures, gas turbine engine components that comprise such sandwich structures, and methods of producing such sandwich structures. The ceramic matrix composite sandwich structure includes a core having oppositely-disposed first and second surfaces, a first facesheet bonded to the first surface, and a member bonded to the second surface so that the core is between the first facesheet and the member. The first facesheet and the core comprise, respectively, first and second ceramic matrix composite materials (abstract). Millard discloses invention relates to ceramic matrix composite sandwich structures, gas turbine engine components comprising such structures, and processes of making such structures (para 0002). Millard discloses the ceramic matrix of the facesheets 42 and 44 can be formed from a ceramic slurry, in which case the facesheets 42 and 44 are initially in the form of a prepreg. As used herein, a "ceramic slurry" refers to any fluid material containing a mixture of one or more types of polymer materials and one or more types of ceramic particles (para 0023). Nonlimiting examples of ceramic particle constituents that are suitable for use in the ceramic slurry include oxides of such elements as Al, Si, B, and combinations thereof, including such commercially available materials as AI2O3, S1O2.sub., B2O3 and 3Al.sub.20.sub.3. Typically, preferred ceramic particles sizes are believed to have diameters of less than one micrometer (para 0024), where the ceramic particles used in facesheet 42 corresponds to second ceramic particles having a particle size of less than 1 microns (para 0024).
However, Millard fails to disclose that the second ceramic particles having a particle size range of 10-500 microns.
Whereas, Nakaoka discloses composite sintered body in which a plurality of composite fiber bodies coated with a skin material having a composition different from that of the core material is collected around a fibrous core material, and the core material has a diameter of 5 to 50 μm (claim 1). Nakaoka discloses as a material constituting the core material 11 of the composite fiber body 13 used in the present invention, at least one oxide, carbide, nitride, and the like selected from the group of the periodic table 4a, 5a and 6a group metals, aluminum and silicon, and A first ceramic made of carbonitride, among which at least one selected from the group of alumina-zirconia, alumina-titanium carbide (titanium carbonitride), alumina-silicon carbide, silicon carbide, silicon nitride, zirconia, titanium boride (para 0024).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to form second ceramic particles of Millard having a diameter of 5-50 microns as taught by Nakaoka motivated by the desire to have high strength and toughness (para 0018).
Regarding claim 15, Millard discloses ceramic matrix composite sandwich structure includes a core having oppositely-disposed first and second surfaces, a first facesheet bonded to the first surface, and a member bonded to the second surface so that the core is between the first facesheet and the member. The first facesheet and the core comprise, respectively, first and second ceramic matrix composite materials (abstract). Millard discloses the ceramic matrix of the facesheets 42 and 44 can be formed from a ceramic slurry, in which case the facesheets 42 and 44 are initially in the form of a prepreg. As used herein, a "ceramic slurry" refers to any fluid material containing a mixture of one or more types of polymer materials and one or more types of ceramic particles (para 0023). Nonlimiting examples of ceramic particle constituents that are suitable for use in the ceramic slurry include oxides of such elements as Al, Si, B, and combinations thereof, including such commercially available materials as AI2O3, S1O2.sub., B2O3 and 3Al.sub.20.sub.3. Typically, preferred ceramic particles sizes are believed to have diameters of less than one micrometer (para 0024).
Claim(s) 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Millard et al. (WO 2012/118516) in view of Nakaoka (JP 2005-008462) as applied to claim 1, further in view of Massa et al. (US 5677042).
Regarding claim 16, Millard fails to disclose that a grain ratio of first average of the first particle size range to a second average of the second particle size is from 10:1 to 500:1.
Whereas, Massa discloses methods for using and articles comprising cermets, preferably cemented carbides and more preferably tungsten carbide, having at least two regions exhibiting at least one property that differs are discussed. Preferably, a first region of the cermet comprises a first ceramic component having a relatively coarse grain size and a prescribed binder content and a second region, juxtaposing or adjoining the first region, comprises a second ceramic component, preferably carbide(s), having a grain size less than the grain size of the first region (abstract). The ratio of the grain size of the tungsten carbide of the first cemented carbide composition to the grain size of the tungsten carbide of the second cemented carbide composition comprises about 1.5 to about 12 (claim 26).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to form second ceramic particle and first ceramic particle of Millard having a grain ratio size in a range of 10:1 as taught by Massa motivated by the desire to have wear and impact resistance.
Claim(s) 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Millard et al. (WO 2012/118516) in view of Nakaoka (JP 2005-008462) as applied to claim 1, further in view of Liu et al. (CN 117694615).
Regarding claims 19-20, Millard fails to disclose core further comprises a plurality of first pore having a first pore size range and composite face sheet comprises a plurality of second pores having a second pore size range.
Whereas, Liu discloses a multi-sheet layer porous ceramic substrate and atomization core thereof, the multi-sheet layer porous ceramic substrate is composed of several groups of ceramic sheet layers which are stacked up and down and sintered integrally, each group of ceramic sheet layers comprises 1 to several layers of ceramic sheet layers, each layer of ceramic sheet layer is uniformly distributed with bubble-shaped micro-holes, the average aperture of the micro-pore in the ceramic sheet layer of the same group of different layers is the same, the average aperture of the micro-pore in the ceramic sheet layer of different groups is different, several groups of ceramic sheet layers are arranged from bottom to top, the average aperture of the micro-pore in each group of ceramic sheet layer has the rule that the size changes alternately or changes from big to small (abstract). The pore-forming agent has an average particle size of 5 to 100 .mu.m, or 15 to 80 .mu.m, or 25 to 60 .mu.m. Preferably, the pore-forming agent is a material for vaporizing and evaporating when sintering and forming micro-pores in the porous ceramic substrate, comprising at least one of graphite, starch, wood powder, flour, bean powder, polystyrene micro-sphere, polymethyl methacrylate micro-sphere, sucrose and fibre (page 9, para 1-2). The aggregate is the main material of the skeleton forming the multi-sheet porous ceramic substrate, comprising kaolin, diatomite, alumina, silicon nitride, silicon carbide, quartz sand, glass sand, clay, feldspar powder, fused quartz, at least one of cordierite and mullite (claim 14).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to form core of Millard having a plurality of pores having first infiltrant having a higher pore size as taught by Liu and to form first face sheet of Millard having a plurality of pores having second infiltrant having low pore size as taught by Liu motivated by the desire to have improved processability for end use applications.
Conclusion
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/RONAK C PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1788