Ex Parte Boettcher et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 16, 2014

12614207 (P.T.A.B. May. 16, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte ERIC BOETTCHER and CEBY PHILIP ____________________ Appeal 2012-004956 Application 12/614,207 Technology Center 3600 ____________________ Before: JENNIFER D. BAHR, STEFAN STAICOVICI, and JILL D. HILL, Administrative Patent Judges. BAHR, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2012-004956 Application 12/614,207 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-8, 10-15, and 17-231. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. The Claimed Subject Matter Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter. 1. A bed frame system for use on a plurality of unibody vehicle types having varying longitudinal bed lengths, comprising: at least a first vehicle type having a unibody frame including a first front frame assembly, a first floor frame assembly and a first rear frame assembly, said first rear frame assembly including at least one longitudinal frame member having a first longitudinal length; and at least a second vehicle type having a unibody frame including a second front frame assembly, a second floor frame assembly and a second rear frame assembly, said second rear frame assembly including at least one longitudinal frame member having a second longitudinal length, wherein one or more of said longitudinal frame members of said first and second rear frame assemblies has a cross-sectional profile that remains constant along at least a longitudinal portion thereof allowing said one or more members to be cut at a first location along said longitudinal portion corresponding to said first longitudinal length when included in said first rear frame assembly and at a second location along said longitudinal portion corresponding to said second longitudinal length when included in said second rear frame assembly. 1 Appellants canceled claims 9 and 16. Appeal 2012-004956 Application 12/614,207 3 Evidence The Examiner relied on the following evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal: Townsend Jaekel US 6,010,182 US 6,533,348 B1 Jan. 4, 2000 Mar. 18, 2003 Robbins McNulty US 2005/0168008 A1 US 2008/0042469 A1 Aug. 4, 2005 Feb. 21, 2008 Isobloc FR 987,481 Aug. 14, 1951 Rejections The following rejections are before us for review: I. Claims 1-5, 7, 10, 12-15, and 17-23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jaekel, Robbins, and McNulty. II. Claims 6 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jaekel, Robbins, McNulty, and Isobloc. III. Claim 8 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jaekel, Robbins, McNulty, and Townsend. OPINION Rejection I In contesting this rejection, Appellants present the same arguments for claims 1-5, 7, 10, 12-15, and 20-23, and present an additional argument for claims 17-19.2 We select claims 1 and 17 as representative of these groups, with claims 2-5, 7, 10, 12-15, and 20-23 standing or falling with claim 1 and 2 Appellants present arguments for claims 2, 10, 19, and 20 under separate subheadings, but merely point out additional claim limitations and rely on the same arguments presented for claims 1 and 17. App. Br. 14, 16, 18-19. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011) (stating “[a] statement which merely points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for separate patentability of the claim.”). Appeal 2012-004956 Application 12/614,207 4 claims 18 and 19 standing or falling with claim 17. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011). Claim 1 is directed to a bed frame system comprising at least a first vehicle type having a first rear frame assembly including at least one longitudinal frame member having a first longitudinal length and at least a second vehicle type having a second rear frame assembly including at least one longitudinal frame member having a second longitudinal length. Claim 1 requires that at least one longitudinal frame member has a cross-sectional profile that remains constant along at least a longitudinal portion thereof allowing the one or more longitudinal frame members to be cut at a first location corresponding to the first longitudinal length and a second location corresponding to the second longitudinal length. Appellants argue that the Examiner’s finding that Jaekel discloses longitudinal bed frame members 67, 69 having a uniform cross section is in error. App. Br. 11. Appellants argue that Jaekel discloses that members 67, 69 are formed from a tubular blank that may be shaped first by roll forming and then hydroforming and the hydroforming process is used particularly for purposes of varying the cross section of longitudinal frame members. Id. at 11-12; Reply Br. 5. Appellants also argue that while Jaekel indicates that the members 67, 69 are “essentially straight,” this does not have the same meaning as “uniform cross-section” and that a member can be essentially straight while having a cross section that is not uniform. App. Br. 12; Reply Br. 5. Appellants also argue that Robbins and McNulty are directed to body- on-frame construction and do not relate to unibody type vehicles such that one of ordinary skill in the art “would not readily apply the teachings of these references to the hydroformed frame taught by Jaekel et al.,” Appeal 2012-004956 Application 12/614,207 5 specifically as it relates to lengthening the frame of a vehicle. App. Br. 13- 14. Appellants also argue that the Examiner is “using the claim as a template for combining elements disclosed in Jaekel and elements disclosed in Robbins and McNulty.” Id. at 13. The Examiner finds that Figure 1 of Jaekel “at the very least, suggests” that at least a longitudinal portion of the members 67, 69 has a constant cross-sectional profile. Ans. 5. The Examiner also finds that many other members in the frame of Jaekel require variation in cross section because they have a bent configuration and there is no discussion of a bent configuration regarding the essentially straight members 67, 69. Id. at 7. The Examiner also finds that the teachings of length from a ladder frame vehicle can be applied to a unibody frame vehicle because “[a] body engineer does not work in such [a] compartmentalized area that he is unaware of logical deductions from other body configurations.” Id. The Examiner also finds that the teachings of Robbins and McNulty are within the same field of endeavor, body design, and are thus “relevant to the problem of applicant in lengthening the bed of the vehicle . . . . both reference[s] are concerned with roll-formed vehicle body members.” Id. Figure 1 of Jaekel depicts tubular members 67, 69 which reasonably appear to have a cross-sectional profile that remains constant along at least a longitudinal portion, i.e., the entire length, thereof. Thus, the Examiner did not err in finding that Jaekel’s Figure 1 at least suggests such. We do not agree with Appellants that Jaekel’s disclosure of hydroforming in any way controverts the Examiner’s finding. Although Jaekel discloses that any of the “members” in the frame are formed from a tubular blank 620, Jaekel also discloses that “[e]ach blank 620 may be constructed by any suitable method” Appeal 2012-004956 Application 12/614,207 6 and that “the transverse cross section of each blank 620 may be shaped by roll forming in a continuous longitudinally extending strip of sheet metal in a roll forming operation.” Col. 17, ll. 10-15. Furthermore, Jaekel also discloses that “each hydroformed member can have a cross-sectional configuration that varies continuously along its length,” not that each hydroformed member necessarily has a cross-sectional configuration that varies continuously along its length. See col. 1, ll. 30-33 (emphasis added). In other words, while hydroforming is a technique that can be used to form parts having a cross-sectional configuration that varies along the length of the part, not all hydroformed parts necessarily have cross-sectional profiles that vary continuously along the length of the part. See Ans. 7. Appellants’ arguments that Robbins and McNulty cannot be combined with Jaekel because Robbins and McNulty present body-on-frame teachings and Jaekel presents unibody teachings are not convincing. While we appreciate that the distinctions between body-on-frame type vehicles and unibody-type vehicles might present different design considerations, as mentioned by Appellants (see App. Br. 14), Appellants present no evidence or convincing technical reasoning showing or even suggesting that these distinctions would have caused a person of ordinary skill in the art to disregard, as inapplicable to unibody vehicles, the teachings of Robbins regarding varying bed length or of McNulty regarding designing bed upper rails to be cut to desired length. The combination of Jaekel, Robbins, and McNulty proposed by the Examiner is nothing more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions or the simple substitution of one known technique for another. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. Appeal 2012-004956 Application 12/614,207 7 398, 416 (2007) (stating that an improvement that is nothing more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions is likely to be obvious). The Examiner found that both long-bed and short- bed pickups were known in the art, as evidenced by Robbins, and, further, that the concept of manufacturing vehicle parts adapted to be cut to desired lengths was known in the art, as evidenced by McNulty. Thus, the Examiner’s reasoning that it would have been obvious to form Jaekel’s members 67, 69 and cut them to size for either a long-bed or short-bed pickup has rational underpinnings. Accordingly, we do not agree with Appellants that the Examiner’s rejection “is using the claim as a template for combining elements disclosed in Jaekel and elements disclosed in Robbins and McNulty” See App. Br. 13. For the above reasons, Appellants’ arguments do not apprise us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. We sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-5, 7, 10, 12-15, and 20-23 as unpatentable over Jaekel, Robbins, and McNulty. In contesting the rejection of claim 17, in addition to relying on the same arguments presented for claim 1, Appellants argue that the Examiner has overlooked the claimed feature of the first floor frame assembly having a first longitudinal length and the second floor frame assembly having a second longitudinal length, and assert that the Examiner’s additional reliance on Townsend in rejecting claim 8 is a concession that the combination of Jaekel, Robbins, and McNulty fail to render obvious a bed frame system having this feature. App. Br. 17. Appellants’ argument is not convincing. In contrast to claim 8, which recites that the second longitudinal length (i.e., the length of the second floor Appeal 2012-004956 Application 12/614,207 8 frame assembly) varies relative to the first longitudinal length (i.e., the length of the first floor frame assembly), claim 17 does not specify that the first and second longitudinal lengths are different from one another. Thus, Appellants’ arguments do not apprise us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 17. We sustain the rejection of claims 17-19 as unpatentable over Jaekel, Robbins and McNulty. Rejection II In contesting the rejection of claims 6 and 11, Appellants merely rely on the arguments presented for claims 1 and 10, from which claims 6 and 11 depend. App. Br. 19. These arguments do not apprise us of error, for the reasons discussed above. Thus, we also sustain the rejection of claims 6 and 11 as unpatentable over Jaekel, Robbins, McNulty, and Isobloc. Rejection III With respect to claim 8, Appellants argue that “the Examiner has not provided any articulated reasoning for why one skilled in the art would modify the triple combination of [Jaekel, Robbins, and McNulty] with the teaching of Townsend.” App. Br. 15. The Examiner finds that “it was known in this art to provide both 2 and 4 door versions of unibody trucks, hence requiring both long and short length floor frame assemblies to accommodate the third and fourth door.” Ans. 6. The Examiner then determines that it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the combination of Jaekel, Robbins, and McNulty with either two doors or four doors, as taught by Townsend, with the accompanying variable floor frame assemblies. Id. at 7. The Examiner also asserts that the reasoning for the combination including Appeal 2012-004956 Application 12/614,207 9 Townsend is “explicit in the addition of a second set of doors to a truck, allowing easier access and greater passenger capacity.” Id. at 8. Appellants do not identify any error in the Examiner’s findings or reasoning. Contrary to Appellants’ arguments, the Examiner has articulated reasons with rational underpinnings for combining the teachings of Jaekel, Robbins, McNulty, and Townsend. Thus, Appellants do not apprise us of error in the Examiner’s rejection. We sustain the rejection of claim 8 as unpatentable over Jaekel, Robbins, McNulty, and Townsend. DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-8, 10-15, and 17-23 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED hh