Ex Parte Carrato et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 25, 2017

11908219 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 25, 2017)

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. 308186 1581 EXAMINER POOS, MADISON LYNN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3781 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/908,219 02/06/2008 7590 Kelly S. K. Elsea The Coleman Company, Inc. 3600 N. Hydraulic Wichita, KS 67219 10/25/2017 Eric Carrato 10/25/2017 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ERIC CARRATO and YANN DEVINES Appeal 2016-006607 Application 11/908,219 Technology Center 3700 Before STEFAN STAICOVICI, LEE L. STEPINA, and ARTHUR M. PESLAK, Administrative Patent Judges. STEPINA, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Eric Carrato and Yann Devines (“Appellants1”) appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1—9, 19, and 20.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 The Appeal Brief lists “The Coleman Company” as the real party in interest. Br. 2. 2 Claims 10-18 are canceled. See Br. 29 (App. A). Appeal 2016-006607 Application 11/908,219 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to a cartridge for pressurized fluid. Spec. 12. Claim 1, reproduced below, is the sole independent claim: 1. A cartridge for pressurized fluid comprising: a metallic body having a cylindrical portion of diameter D lying between 75 millimeters and 110 millimeters surmounted by a dome at one of its ends and a circular opening at its second end, and a metallic bottom of diameter d less than the diameter D closing the opening of the body, the bottom having a concavity oriented toward an inside of the body, a connection between the bottom and the body being made by an annular seam, characterized in that the bottom is attached to the body by swaging and the body has, in its portion adjacent to the opening, a connection zone A comprising: a metallic cylindrical end portion of a height h of diameter equal to the diameter of the bottom, a metallic frustoconical portion connecting the cylindrical end portion to the cylindrical body, the frustoconical portion forming an angle a with the cylindrical end portion, a lying between 10 and 30°, and the height h of the cylindrical end portion lying between 3 and 10 millimeters, and the connection zone A is such as before exploding, under the effect of an increase in gas pressure over a predetermined pressure, the bottom of the gas cartridge sustains a permanent inversion to become convex, which change of concavity of the bottom makes it possible to increase the volume inside the cartridge while retaining its seal. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on US 3,512,676 US 3,850,339 appeal is: Dawson Kinkel 2 May 19, 1970 Nov. 26, 1974 Appeal 2016-006607 Application 11/908,219 Knize Kawamoto Beard Jentzsch Szwargulski US 3,878,963 Apr. 22, 1975 US 4,919,294 Apr. 24, 1990 US 5,171,648 Dec. 15, 1992 US 5,279,442 Jan. 18, 1994 US 6,182,852 B1 Feb. 6, 2001 REJECTIONS (I) Claims 1, 6—9, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Dawson, Kinkel, Szwargulski, Jentzsch, and Beard. (II) Claims 2—5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Dawson, Kinkel, Szwargulski, Jentzsch, Beard, and Kawamoto. (III) Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Dawson, Kinkel, Szwargulski, Jentzsch, Beard, and Knize. The Examiner finds that Dawson discloses most of the limitations of claim 1 including a metallic bottom with a concavity, but does not disclose, inter alia, that “under the effect of an increase in gas pressure over a predetermined pressure, the bottom of the gas cartridge sustains a permanent inversion to become convex.” Final Act. 2—3. Nonetheless, the Examiner finds that “Beard teaches a header 39 that allows for the internal pressure to produce an outward buckling force which can be designed to be a permanent bulging of the header by insuring that the elastic limit of the header material is exceeded.” Id. at 4 (citing Beard 4:59—5:1). The Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to “use the deformation of Beard with the OPINION Rejection (I); claims 1, 6—9, and 19 3 Appeal 2016-006607 Application 11/908,219 cartridge as taught by Dawson ... to provide an inversion of the bottom of the can.” Id. (citing Beard 4:64—66). Appellants argue that “one of the objectives of Dawson is the ‘provision of a canister having end walls which will not distort and the seams of which will not leak when the canister is subjected to internal pressures of substantial magnitude.’” Br. 8 (citing Dawson 2:6—18). According to Appellants, Dawson has a specific structure that is “designed to have and maintain a concave orientation” and “thus explicitly teaches away from” a permanent inversion to become convex. Br. 9—10. Appellants’ arguments are persuasive. A reference may be said to teach away when a person of ordinary skill, upon reading the reference, “would be led in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the applicant.” In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Dawson discloses that distortion goes hand-in-hand with unwanted unrolling of the seams, and that the seams forming the junctures of side wall 152 and top and bottom walls 160, 162 are “capable of withstanding distorting forces of extremely large magnitude . . . thereby resisting the tendency of inner wall sections 166, 194, to roll outwardly or the inwardly curved portions to distort into a convex configuration.” Dawson 6:42—56. Based on this disclosure, and Dawson’s disclosure that the end walls “will not distort” when subjected to high magnitude internal pressures cited by Appellants, Dawson, considered as a whole, teaches away from the arrangement required by claim 1. We agree with Appellants that Dawson would lead one of ordinary skill in the art away from “a permanent inversion to become convex,” and, thus, teaches away from the claimed invention. 4 Appeal 2016-006607 Application 11/908,219 Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1, and of claims 6—9 and 19 depending from claim 1 as unpatentable over Dawson, Kinkel, Szwargulski, Jentzsch, and Beard. Rejections (II) and (III); claims 2—5 and 20 Claims 2—5 and 20 depend from claim 1. The Examiner does not rely on the disclosures of Kawamoto or Knize in any manner that would remedy the deficiencies in the rejection of claim 1 discussed supra. For the same reasons discussed above regarding Rejection (I), we also do not sustain Rejections (II) and (III). DECISION The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—9, 19, and 20 is reversed. REVERSED 5