Ex Parte Distaso et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 12, 201814225657 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 12, 2018) Copy Citation 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. 14/225,657 03/26/2014 TAMARA DISTASO PAT-US20050071 -US-CNT 9144 173 7590 03/14/2018 WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION - MD 3601 2000 NORTH M63 BENTON HARBOR, MI 49022 EXAMINER PELHAM, JOSEPH MOORE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3742 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/14/2018 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): whirlpool_patents_co@whirlpool.com mike_lafrenz @ whirlpool .com deborah_tomaszewski@whirlpool.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte TAMARA DISTASO and STEFANIA FRACCON Appeal 2016-002741 Application 14/225,6571 Technology Center 3700 Before JENNIFER D. BAHR, EDWARD A. BROWN, and JEREMY M. PLENZLER, Administrative Patent Judges. PLENZLER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yamasaki (US 7,199,340 B2; iss. Apr. 3, 2007) and Hofer (WO 99/33347; pub. July 8, 1999).2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 Appellant is the Applicant, Whirlpool Corporation, which, according to the Appeal Brief, is the real party in interest. App. Br. 2. 2 Appellant filed Terminal Disclaimers on December 29, 2015, which were approved by the Examiner on April 9, 2016, to address the double patenting rejections. Appeal 2016-002741 Application 14/225,657 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Claim 1 is the sole independent claim, and claims 2—20 depend from claim 1. Claim 1 is reproduced below: 1. A method of cooking food using steam during a cooking cycle with a cooking time in an automated household oven with a cooking cavity, a heating system for heating the cooking cavity, and a steam system for introducing steam into the cooking cavity, the method comprising: a preheating step where the cooking cavity is heated toward a cooking temperature, which is greater than the boiling point of water and comprising: a dry preheating step where heat is supplied to the cooking cavity from the heating system to raise an air temperature in the cooking cavity to a first temperature, which is greater than or equal to the boiling point of water, without the introduction of steam into the cooking cavity; and a steam preheating step where heat is supplied to the cooking cavity to increase the air temperature in the cooking cavity from the first temperature to the cooking temperature, which is greater than the first temperature, with the introduction of steam into the cooking cavity; and a cooking step where the cooking cavity is maintained at the cooking temperature. OPINION As seen above, claim 1 requires “a steam preheating step” that “increase[s] the air temperature in the cooking cavity from [a] first temperature [greater than or equal to the boiling point of water] to [a] cooking temperature . . . greater than the first temperature.” In the rejection of claim 1, the Examiner refers to Figure 11 of Yamazaki as teaching “a dry preheating step up to the boiling temperature of water, followed by a steam introduction step, and a cooking step commencing at a cooking temperature of at least the boiling temperature of 2 Appeal 2016-002741 Application 14/225,657 water, by placing a food item (on pan 21) in the oven.” Final Act. 3 (citing Yamazaki, 4:17—33, 14:9-24, Fig. 11); see also Ans. 5. In the Final Action, the Examiner further explains that “[t]he claims differ substantively from [Yamazaki] only in calling for steam cooking at a temperature greater than that reached during the dry preheating step,” and cites Hofer as teaching that feature. Final Act. 3. Specifically, without citing to any particular portion of Hofer, the Examiner notes that Hofer teaches “dry preheating to 100 deg C, continued preheating, while introducing steam, to a steam cooking temperature greater than that reached during the dry preheating step, and cooking with steam at this greater temperature, 140 deg. C (284 deg F),” and reasons that “[i]t would have been obvious to utilize the cooking temperatures of [Hofer] since these are disclosed to be appropriate for baked goods.” Id. The Final Action makes clear that “[t]he Examiner relied on [Hofer] only for its teaching of cooking temperatures above the boiling point of water.” Id. at 6. In the Answer, the Examiner changes the characterization of the differences between the claimed arrangement and that taught by Yamazaki, noting that “[t]he claims differ substantively from [Yamazaki] only in calling for continued preheating with steam to a cooking temperature greater than that reached during the dry preheating step,” and cites Hofer as teaching “preheating with steam, to steam cooking temperatures up to 160° C.” Ans. 5 (citing App. Br. 24—25 (Evidence Appendix including the translation of lines 1—37 on page 14 of Hofer)). When addressing the steam preheating step later in the Answer, however, the Examiner again refers to Yamazaki, and simply cites Hofer as evidence “that a steam cooking temperature higher than the boiling point of water is conventional.” Id. at 9. 3 Appeal 2016-002741 Application 14/225,657 Appellant disputes the Examiner’s findings. Appellant contends, for example, that “claim 1 . . . expressly calls for the air temperature to be increased from the first temperature to the cooking temperature” during the steam preheating step and “Yamasaki actually expressly teaches no steam during any preheating phase.” App. Br. 9, 11; see also Reply Br. 3. Appellant further contends that Hofer does not teach the steam pre-heating asserted by the Examiner in the Answer. Reply Br. 3. We are persuaded by Appellant’s contentions. To the extent the Examiner now relies on Hofer as teaching the steam preheating step, the Examiner offers no explanation as to how the cited portion of Hofer provides the alleged teaching. Appellant responds that Hofer does not provide the teaching asserted by the Examiner. See, e.g., Reply Br. 3 (“Nowhere does [Hofer] suggest using steam to heat the baking compartment to any temperature over 90°C.”). After review of Hofer and, in particular, the 37 lines of Hofer cited by the Examiner in connection with the asserted teaching, we are not apprised of any teaching of the steam preheating step recited in the claim. With respect to Yamazaki, we also are apprised of nothing that teaches “increasing] the air temperature in the cooking cavity from [a] first temperature [greater than or equal to the boiling point of water] to [a] cooking temperature . . . greater than the first temperature,” as required by claim 1. Appellant includes an annoted version of Yamazaki’s Figure 11, 4 Appeal 2016-002741 Application 14/225,657 which is reproduced below for reference. The Figure shown above is an annotated version of Yamazaki’s Figure 11 found on page 13 of the Appeal Brief and includes Appellant’s annotations indicating what Appellant considers the end of Yamazaki’s preheating step and the subsequent temperature rise from the oven door being closed. The portion of Yamazaki cited by the Examiner in the Final Action describes the heating shown in Figure 11, which includes the line labeled “preheating.” Yamazaki, 14:9—24. With respect to that arrangement, Yamazaki explains that, initially, “power is supplied to the upper heater . . . thereby carrying out preheating.” Id. at 14:12—13. “After the preheating is completed ... the power is supplied to . . . the evaporation pan heater” and “the steam is supplied into the heating chamber.” Id. at 14:13—17. Yamazaki further explains that “the inner temperature is once dropped when the openable door is opened to mount the thing to be heated on the pan after 5 Appeal 2016-002741 Application 14/225,657 the preheating, and the inner temperature is suddenly raised when the openable door is closed” and “a steady state is quickly brought in the vicinity of 100° C to be a steam supply temperature.” Id. at 14:18—24. It is unclear, based on the disclosure of Yamazaki, at which time steam heating begins on the “preheating” line. Yamazaki explains, for example, that “[ajfter the preheating is completed . . . steam is supplied into the heating chamber.” Id. at 14:13—17. Based on the graph in Figure 11 (comparing the bar graphs to the “preheating” line), however, the time at which preheating is completed (noted by Appellants’ line labeled “end of preheating step”) occurs before power supply to the upper heater ends and power supply to the evaporation pan heater begins. According to that graphical illustration, steam appears to be introduced on or after the time at which the temperature has risen due to closing the door (noted by Appellant’s line labeled “temperature rise attributable to door being closed”) because the beginning of the bar graph for “power supply to evaporation pan heater” aligns with that point in time. Regardless of which of the points on the graph in Figure 11 discussed above corresponds to the introduction of steam into the oven, none meets the claim requirement of the steam preheating step increasing the temperature from a temperature greater than or equal to the boiling point of water. For example, if steam is introduced at the end of preheating and before the door is opened, or after the door is closed and the temperature rise has completed, there is no increase in temperature after such a time. If steam is introduced after the door is opened and the subsequent temperature drop, although there is a subsequent increase in temperature, that increase begins at a temperature less than the boiling point of water. 6 Appeal 2016-002741 Application 14/225,657 As for the additional discussion of Yamazaki’s asserted teachings in the Answer, “that, during a preheating step, steam should not be introduced into a cooking chamber until the chamber temperature has reached at least the boiling point of water” (Ans. 9 (citing Yamazaki, 14:30-40)), we note that the cited portion of Yamazaki describes scenerios where preheating is not used. See Yamazaki, 14:30-40 (“On the other hand, in the case in which the power is supplied to the evaporation pan heater without carrying out the preheating, the inner temperature is raised slowly, causing an increase in a time required for the cooking” and requiring “a great deal of time and labor is required for removing the condensed water from the bottom face or side surface of the heating chamber.”). That portion of Yamazaki does not cure the deficienies noted above. For at least the reasons discussed above, the Examiner has failed to establish that claim 1 is unpatentable over the combination of Yamazaki and Hofer. Claims 2—20 depend from claim 1, and the rejections of those claims do not cure the deficiencies in the rejection of claim 1. DECISION We REVERSE the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—20. REVERSED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation