Ex Parte Hillen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 31, 2017

12967667 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 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. 12/967,667 12/14/2010 Edward Hillen 201990.05770 1001 64956 7590 04/04/2017 HAHN LOESER / LINCOLN 200 Public Square, Suite 2800 Cleveland, OH 44114 EXAMINER WARD, THOMAS JOHN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3742 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/04/2017 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): patents@hahnlaw.com ip @ lincolnelectrie .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte EDWARD HILLEN and DAVID KEMPERT Appeal 2015-007662 Application 12/967,667 Technology Center 3700 Before JOHN C. KERINS, BRANDON J. WARNER, and LEE L. STEPINA, Administrative Patent Judges. KERINS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Edward Hillen and David Kempert (Appellants) seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final rejection of claims 23 and 25—30. Claims 1—22 and 24 are canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. Appeal 2015-007662 Application 12/967,667 THE INVENTION Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a method of retracting a welding wire into a welding gun. Claim 23, reproduced below, is illustrative: 23. A method of retracting a welding wire into a welding gun after completion of a welding operation driven by a manual welding apparatus comprising the steps of: accessing a setup menu associated with the welding apparatus to define a user-definable retract delay time or using a retract delay time defined by a previous user; depressing a welding gun trigger to initiate forward feeding of a welding wire by rotational engagement of at least one welding wire feeder drive roller by communicating a start signal to a wire drive motor in operative connection with the at least one wire feeder drive roller and initiating a welding arc to begin the welding operation; releasing the welding gun trigger and detecting when the welding arc is extinguished to determine a start time of the delay time; and automatically retracting the welding wire without user intervention to a location within the welding gun after the expiration of the user-definable wait delay time by communicating an end signal to the wire drive motor in operative connection with the at least one wire feeder drive roller and reversing the direction of the welding wire by rotational engagement of at least one welding wire feeder drive roller with the welding wire by having at least one welding wire feeder drive roller rotating in a direction opposite of the direction employed when forward feeding the welding wire. 2 Appeal 2015-007662 Application 12/967,667 THE REJECTIONS The Examiner rejects: (i) claims 23, 25—27, 29, and 30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Rozmarynowski (US 2011/0309061 Al, published Dec. 22, 2011) in view of Zeller (US 3,277,269, issued Oct. 4, 1966); and (ii) claim 28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Rozmarynowski in view of Zeller and Hackl (US 7,015,419 B2, issued Mar. 21,2006). All other rejections present in the Final Action are mooted by the cancelation of claims 1—22 and 24 in an Amendment after Final Action dated December 19, 2014, and entered by the Examiner in an Advisory Action dated January 22, 2015. ANALYSIS Claims 23, 25—27, 29, and 30—Rozmarynowski/Zeller The Examiner finds that Rozmarynowski discloses all steps set forth in independent claim 23, including “a delay to receive indication [that a] switch is actuated and then sending a command to rotate [a] wire drive” to retract the wire. Final Act. 5. The Examiner notes that Rozmarynowski does not disclose a step of “releasing the welding gun trigger and detecting when the welding arc is extinguished to determine a start time of a user- definable wait delay time.” Id. The Examiner further finds that Zeller discloses a method for arc welding that includes a wire stop delay relay, or wait delay time, and concludes that it would have been obvious to modify Rozmarynowski to include this feature, in order to “provide a[n] efficient and controllable time for stopping and starting a welding process.” Id. 3 Appeal 2015-007662 Application 12/967,667 In response to various arguments advanced by Appellants in traversing the rejection, the Examiner further takes the position that the combination teaches ... an automatic retract method once the user has either release [d] or pushed the pushing trigger 32. The actual retract operation of Rozmarynowski... is automatic once the configuration is in operation. The operation of the trigger allows for the automatic retraction of the wire once the trigger is pushed. . . and Zeller teaches ... a user defined delay seeing as the user in [sic, is] interactive with the machine in order for the delay to take action. Ans. 3^4. Appellants reply that their use of the term “automatically,” in conjunction with the recitation “without user intervention,” means that the retraction will occur as a matter of course after the passage of a user- definable retract delay time, which is also a limitation set forth in claim 23. Reply Br. 7. Rozmarynowski requires a user to actuate a switch to initiate the wire retraction therein. Appeal Br. 9; Rozmarynowski, Fig. 5. Zeller appears to provide for wire retraction without a specific user intervention, but, as pointed out by Appellants, Zeller fails to disclose an actuation of the wire retraction based on a user-defined delay timed from a detection of the welding arc being extinguished. Appeal Br. 10. Instead, the delay imposed by Zeller is based on the amount of time it takes in order for a motor to fully come to a halt. Id. (citing Zeller, col. 8,11. 10-17). Based on these teachings, we agree with Appellants that neither Rozmarynowski nor Zeller, nor a combination of the teachings thereof, renders obvious a method in which wire retraction is effected automatically, 4 Appeal 2015-007662 Application 12/967,667 without user intervention, with a user-defined delay imposed, the delay time being started upon detection of the extinguishment of the welding arc. The rejection of claim 23 as being unpatentable over Rozmarynowski and Zeller is thus not sustained. Claims 25—27, 29, and 30 depend from claim 23, and the same rejection directed to those claims likewise is not sustained. Claim 28—Rozmarynowski/Zeller/Hackl The Examiner does not rely on Hackl in any manner that remedies the deficiencies noted above with respect to the combination of the teachings of Rozmarynowski and Zeller. The rejection is not sustained. DECISION The Examiner’s rejections of claims 23 and 25—30 are reversed. REVERSED 5