Christopher Pete. Benson et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 16, 2019

14064366 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 16, 2019)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
14/064,366 10/28/2013 Christopher Pete Benson 13-0704-US-NP 6713
63759 7590 09/16/2019
DUKE W. YEE
YEE & ASSOCIATES, P.C.
P.O. BOX 190809
DALLAS, TX 75219
EXAMINER
FABULA, MICHAEL A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3647
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/16/2019 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
patentadmin@boeing.com
ptonotifs@yeeiplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
__________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
__________

Ex parte CHRISTOPHER P. BENSON, LEONARD J. QUADRACCI, and
DOUGLAS C. CAMERON
__________

Appeal 2019-000983
Application 14/064,366
Technology Center 3600
__________

Before JENIFER D. BAHR, STEFAN STAICOVICI, and
MICHAEL J. FITZPATRICK, Administrative Patent Judges.

FITZPATRICK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final decision rejecting claims 2, 5, 6, 9–14, 17, and 20–23. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 The Boeing Company (“Appellant”) is the Applicant, as provided for under
37 C.F.R. § 1.46, and is also identified as the sole real party in interest.
Appeal Br. 2.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Specification
The Specification “relates to a method and apparatus for an aircraft
electric motor system.” Spec. 1.
The Rejected Claims
Claims 2, 5, 6, 9–14, 17, and 20–23 are rejected. Final Act. 1. No
other claims are pending. Id. Appellant argues the claims together. Appeal
Br. 7–10. Accordingly, we select independent claim 21 as representative.
See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv); see also Appeal Br. 7 (“Independent claim
21 is representative of the claims on appeal.”). Claim 21 is reproduced
below.
21. An apparatus comprising:
a motor;
a power source;
a switch bridge connected to the motor;
a voltage controller connected to the switch bridge and
the power source; and
a four-quadrant motor controller programmed to:
control the voltage controller to control a voltage
provided from the power source to the switch bridge during an
operating state,
control the switch bridge to control a current provided to
the motor during the operating state,
control the switch bridge to control a current provided
from the motor during a recharge state, and
control the voltage controller to control a voltage
provided to the power source to charge the power source during
the recharge state.
Appeal Br. 14–15.
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The Examiner’s Rejection
The following rejection is before us for review: claims 2, 5, 6, 9–14,
17, and 20–23, under 35 U.S.C. § 103, as being unpatentable over Criado,2
Bailey,3 and Applicant Admitted Prior Art.4 Final Act. 3.
DISCUSSION
Criado discloses “an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) able to harvest
energy from updrafts.” Criado ¶1. Figure 5 of Criado is reproduced below.

Figure 5, reproduced above, shows UAV 10 having, among other things,
flight management system 210, motor/generator 140, and rotor/propeller
190. Id. ¶18. As illustrated, “the rotor 190 may act as a propeller, i.e. the
rotor 190 and the generator/motor 140 may be both an energy harvesting
means, and a propulsion means for providing thrust.” Id. ¶21. “Preferably,

2 EP 2 629 166 A1, published Aug. 21, 2013 (“Criado”).
3 US 4,494,051, issued Jan. 15, 1985 (“Bailey”).
4 The Examiner considers the subject matter of which the Examiner took
Official Notice in the Non-Final Action issued March 6, 2017, to be
Admitted Prior Art as a consequence of Appellant’s failure to challenge the
Official Notice. See Final Act. 2.
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the motor/generator 140 will be a brushless motor.” Id. The flight
management control system controls the motor/generator and battery. Id.
¶23. For example, the flight control management system includes speed
controller 120 that “controls the speed of revolution of the motor/generator.”
Id. ¶¶24, 28.
The Examiner found that Criado discloses all of the subject matter of
claim 21, including a controller, except that:
Criado does not expressly disclose that the controller is a []four-
quadrant motor controller; that the voltage controller (120) is
connected to a switch bridge, or that the motor controller is
programmed to control the voltage controller to control voltage
provided to the motor from the power source in an operating
state, to control the switch bridge to control current to the motor
during an operating state, to control the switch bridge to control
current generated from the motor during a recharge state, and to
control the voltage controller to control voltage provided back to
the batter during a recharge state.
Final Act. 3–4.
The Examiner thus turned to Bailey, finding that it “teaches a control
circuit for brushless DC motors which provides positive control in all four
quadrants of operational space.” Id. at 4 (citing Bailey, [57]). The Examiner
noted that Bailey explicitly teaches the use of such four quadrant motor
controllers in aircraft. Id. (citing Bailey 1:58–2:25). The Examiner further
found that the Bailey “controller is programmed to monitor the current and
control the duty cycle of a motor in response to a feedback loop using the
monitored current.” Id. (citing Bailey 3:5–4:15).
The Examiner determined that it would have been obvious to a person
of ordinary skill in the art “to employ the four quadrant motor controller of
Bailey in place of the generic controller of Criado to achieve the advantages
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outlined in col. [1], lines 25–28, namely improvements in reliability,
simplification of hardware, and reduction of weight.” Id. at 5.
The Examiner originally found that the asserted combination of
Criado and Bailey “does not explicitly recite the details of a switch bridge
and the connection to the motor and the voltage controller.” Final Act. 5.
Thus, in the Final Action, the Examiner relied on Applicant Admitted Prior
Art (“AAPA”). Id. The AAPA is “that the use of H-bridges [a ‘switch
bridge’ per claim 21] to control the direction of electric motors in four
quadrant motor control systems is well-known in the electric aircraft art,”
and that “it is also well known to utilize PWM in order to [change] the speed
of an electric motor in combination with an H-bridge in the electric aircraft
art.” Id. The Examiner explained that PWM (i.e., Pulse Width Modulation)
“requires the manipulation of power input duty cycle thereby affecting the
voltage level output by the circuit which appears to inherently require the
usage of the voltage controller.” Id.
However, in the Answer, the Examiner indicated that reliance on
AAPA is not necessary because, “upon further review,” Bailey “explicitly
teaches the H-bridge and PWM usage in a four-quadrant motor control
system for use in an aircraft.” Ans. 4 (citing Bailey 3:34–43 (disclosing
PWM) and Fig. 2 (illustrating H-bridge)).
Appellant generally argues that “[i]ndividual elements of the claimed
circuit structure, the claimed circuit structure as a whole, and the control
functions performed by the four-quadrant controller as claimed are not
described or suggested in any of the cited references or in any possible
combination thereof.” Appeal Br. 8; see also id. at 10 (similar generalized
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argument). This generalized argument does not apprise us of error because
it does not address the rejection with any particularity.
Appellant also argues the following:
Criado . . . teaches that the speed controller may indirectly
control the power provided by a motor acting as a generator.
However, Criado does not teach that the speed controller may be
used in any way to control voltage. It is respectfully noted that
power is the product of voltage and current. Power may be
controlled without controlling voltage, for example, by
controlling only current. The teaching that the speed controller
in Criado may be used to control generated power thus does not
necessarily mean that the speed controller may be used to control
voltage. Therefore, the speed controller in Criado does not teach
a ‘voltage controller’ as featured in the claims.
Id. at 8 (underlining omitted; emphasis added).
The Examiner responds that Appellant’s arguments about Criado are
not commensurate with the rejection. In that regard, the Examiner concedes
that “Criado does not recite specific details relating to the type of control
system (e.g. a ‘four quadrant controller’) employed and/or the detailed
electrical circuitry used by the control system.” Ans. 3. “Criado is utilized
to demonstrate that an aircraft having a motor and power source, wherein the
motor is used to drive the aircraft, is capable of being electrically braked,
and is capable of being utilized as a generator is known in the art.” Id.
Thus, the rejection “relies on Bailey to show that four-quadrant motor
control systems in aircraft which provide driving power to a motor, provide
electrical motor braking, and allow for use of the motor as a generator are
known and used in the art.” Id.; see also id. at 4 (noting that each of AAPA
and Bailey teach both an H-bridge—a “switch bridge” within the meaning of
claim 21—and PWM usage in a four-quadrant motor control system for use
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in an aircraft) (referring to Final Act. 5–6 and citing Bailey 3:34–43 and Fig.
2). In sum, “[w]hile Criado may not explicitly teach the manipulation of
voltage with the speed controller, Bailey and AAPA were utilized to show
that manipulation of voltage (e.g. PWM) is utilized by four quadrant motor
controllers to effect the same functions as recited in Criado.” Id. at 5; see
also id. (“Bailey explicitly discloses manipulation of voltage using PWM
and the switch bridge to operate in four quadrants.”); Bailey 3:34–40.
In addition, the Examiner responds to Appellant’s argument that, in
Criado, voltage is not inherently controlled merely because power is
controlled. In that regard, the Examiner points out that “in order for a motor
to reverse its rotation direction, the direction of the current and polarity of
the voltage (i.e. +V or -V) must be reversed.” Id. Thus, the Criado
controller controls the voltage, at least in terms of polarity, even if not in
magnitude. Id.
Appellant filed a Reply Brief but, in it, fails to rebut any of these
responses by the Examiner. Appellant’s Reply Brief repeats the same
generalized and unpersuasive argument as its Appeal Brief. See Reply Br. 2
(“[I]ndividual elements of the claimed circuit structure, the claimed circuit
structure as a whole, and the control functions performed by the four-
quadrant controller as claimed are not described or suggested in any of the
cited references or in any possible combination thereof.”); see also id. at 4
(similar generalized argument).
Instead of rebutting the Examiner’s responses, Appellant contends it
need not do so:
The Examiner asserts that a voltage controller is taught by
Criado. The Examiner does not rely on any other references for
teaching a voltage controller. Therefore, Applicant need not deal
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with any other references in pointing out that the Examiner’s
assertion is incorrect.
Reply Br. 2. Appellant is mistaken in its premise and thus its conclusion.
See, e.g., Ans. 5 (“While Criado may not explicitly teach the manipulation of
voltage with the speed controller, Bailey and AAPA were utilized to show
that manipulation of voltage (e.g. PWM) is utilized by four quadrant motor
controllers to effect the same functions as recited in Criado.”); see also In re
Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (“Non-obviousness
cannot be established by attacking references individually where the
rejection is based upon the teachings of a combination of references. . . .
[The reference] must be read, not in isolation, but for what it fairly teaches
in combination with the prior art as a whole.”).
Because Appellant does not apprise us of error, we affirm the
rejection of claim 21 as unpatentable over Criado, Bailey, and Applicant
Admitted Prior Art,5 as well as that of claims 2, 5, 6, 9–14, 17, 20, 22, and
23, which fall therewith. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
SUMMARY
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 2, 5, 6, 9–14, 17, and 20–23 is
affirmed.

5 As discussed above, our affirmance of the rejection does not rely on
AAPA.
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TIME PERIOD
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED