Ex Parte Chen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 29, 2016

13358957 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 29, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/358,957 01/26/2012 22879 7590 05/03/2016 HP Inc, 3390 E. Harmony Road Mail Stop 35 FORT COLLINS, CO 80528-9544 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Fu-Yi Chen 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 82858783 6968 EXAMINER HOFFBERG,ROBERTJOSEPH ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2835 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/03/2016 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): ipa.mail@hp.com barbl@hp.com yvonne.bailey@hp.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte FU-YI CHEN and TSU YU LI 1 Appeal2014-007479 Application 13/358,957 Technology Center 2800 Before MICHAEL P. COLAIANNI, CHRISTOPHER L. OGDEN, and CHRISTOPHER C. KENNEDY, Administrative Patent Judges. OGDEN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's final decision rejecting claims 1-20 in the above-identified application. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b ). We AFFIRM. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP, which is a wholly-owned affiliate of Hewlett- Packard Company, and which has a general or managing partner HPQ Holdings, LLC. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal2014-007479 Application 13/358,957 BACKGROUND Appellants' invention relates to thermal control using an add-on module. See Spec. Title. Independent claim 1 is representative: 1. A system, comprising: a processor connected to a circuit device that includes electrical connections to other components; a base cooling plate disposed adjacent to the processor and connected to a thermal energy transport element; and an add-on module in contact with the base cooling plate when the cooling capacity of the base cooling plate is exceeded by a rating of the processor. Appeal Br. 15 (emphasis added). Claims 8 and 14 are also independent. Id. at 16-17. The Examiner maintains the following grounds of rejection: I. Claims 1, 3, 4, 7-10, 13-15, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 102(b) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 6,532,141 Bl [hereinafter Wu] (issued Mar. 11, 2003). Final Action 5-7. II. Claims 2, 9, and 16-19 as unpatentable over Wu. Final Action 7- 11. III. Claims 5 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Wu and U.S. Patent No. 6,560,104 B2 [hereinafter DeHoffJ (issued May 6, 2003). Final Action 11-12. IV. Claims 6 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Wu and U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2011/0310557 Al [hereinafter Ooe] (published Dec. 22, 2011). Final Action 12-13. Regarding rejection (I), Appellants' arguments focus solely on claims 1, 8, and 14. See Appeal Br. 7-10. Regarding rejection (II), Appellants reiterate and rely on the same arguments for rejection (I), noting that claims 2 Appeal2014-007479 Application 13/358,957 2, 9, and 16-19 depend from claims 1, 8, and 14. See id. at 10-11. Regarding rejection (III), Appellants reiterate and rely on the same arguments for rejection (I), noting that claims 5 and 11 are dependent claims. See id. at 11-12. Regarding rejection (IV), Appellants reiterate and rely on the same arguments for rejection (I), noting that claims 6 and 12 are dependent claims. See id. at 11-12. Therefore, consistent with the provisions of 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2013), we limit our discussion to claims 1, 8, and 14, and that discussion controls the outcome for all other claims on appeal. DISCUSSION The Examiner finds that Wu discloses all the limitations of claims 1, 8, and 14. See Final Action 5-6. In particular, the Examiner finds that Wu discloses "an add-on module (30) in contact with the base cooling plate when the cooling capacity of the base cooling plate is exceeded by a rating of the processor." Id. at 5 (citing Wu 5:7-8); see also Answer 3-5 (citing Wu 1:12-15, 27-30, 44--50, 61---65, 5:5-8, 17-23). The Examiner interprets the phrase a rating of the processor to mean "a characteristic of the processor that is controlled by a user in designing the processor." Id. at 5---6. The Examiner further interprets the claims as requiring that Id. the base cooling plate is insufficient to maintain the processor at the maximum operating temperature while operating at the maximum rated power, therefore additional cooling capacity is needed by the add-on module in order to maintain the processor at or below the maximum temperature when running at the rated power of the processor. 3 Appeal2014-007479 Application 13/358,957 Appellants argue that "nothing in Wu discloses that the plurality of heat-dissipating blocks are utilized when the cooling capacity of the main body and the heat pipe is exceeded by the rating of the electronic component, as generally recited by the present claims." Appeal Br. 7. Specifically, Appellants argue that Wu discloses neither a cooling capacity of a base cooling plate, nor a rating for the electronic component. Id. Moreover, Appellants argue that Wu merely teaches that the addition of heat-dissipating blocks is "for efficiency or to merely increase heat dissipation, or for other reasons, and not in an effort to meet the rating." Id. at 8. According to Appellants, use of a cooling block for "sufficient heat dissipation," as Appellants characterize the disclosure of Wu, "may depend on overall system configuration and operation, among other issues, and not the 'rating' of the thermal energy generating device." Id. at 10. Appellants argue that "the Wu main body and heat body having a cooling capacity less than the rating of a processor in the system is not necessarily present in Wu, as would be required to support an assertion of inherency." Id. at 8-9. The conditional limitation of claims 1, 8, and 14 requires that the add- on module is in contact with the base cooling plate "when the cooling capacity of the base cooling plate is exceeded by a rating" of the processor or thermal energy generating device (claims 1 and 4), or equivalently, "when the thermal energy generating device is rated higher than the cooling capacity of the base cooling plate" (claim 8). Appeal Br. 15-1 7 (emphasis added). In other words, the conditional limitations in claims 1, 8, and 14 each require that if the device rating is greater than the cooling capacity of the base plate, then an add-on module is in contact with the base cooling plate. 4 Appeal2014-007479 Application 13/358,957 Appellants' arguments do not persuade us that the Examiner erred in finding that Wu discloses a thermal energy generating device, such as a processor, in which the conditional limitation of claims 1, 8, and 14 is met. Wu discloses upgraded electronic components in which "the original module for heat dissipation will be insufficient to efficiently dissipate the heat generated from the electronic components," Wu 1:27-29, and therefore, continued use of the original module will result in "the overheat problem, which results in ... component damage or life span reduction," id. at 1 :37- 38. Wu's disclosure expects components to potentially operate at their "full load," see id. at 1: 14--16, and presents the disclosed invention as a way "to fulfill the heat dissipation requirement for the electronic component," id. at 5:22-23. Thus, Wu clearly discloses a system in which the original cooling module is insufficient to accommodate the heat dissipation requirements of a processor operating at its full load. According to the Specification and as acknowledged by Appellants, the "rating of a [processor] is the amount of thermal energy, or heat, output by the [processor] under a maximum load or in response to receiving a maximum amount of power from a power source." Appeal Br. 9 (quoting Spec. i-f 19). In light of this definition, it is clear that Wu also discloses a system in which the rating of the processor, representing the amount of heat generated by the processor at its full load, is greater than the capacity of the original cooling module. As a consequence of this imbalance, Wu discloses the use of an add-on module in contact with the original cooling module (base cooling plate) in order to dissipate the excess heat resulting from the higher rating of the upgraded component. See Wu 5:4--23. 5 Appeal2014-007479 Application 13/358,957 Therefore, Appellants have not persuaded us that the Examiner reversibly erred in finding that Wu discloses all the limitations of claims 1, 8, and 14. For the above reasons, we determine that the evidence of anticipation, on balance, outweighs the evidence of nonanticipation relied upon by Appellants, and we affirm the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-20. DECISION The Examiner's decision is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 6