Ex Parte Huynh

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 27, 2016

12804835 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 27, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/804,835 07 /31/2010 Steven Huynh
47713 7590 04/27/2016
IMPERIUM PATENT WORKS
P.O. BOX607
Pleasanton, CA 94566
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.
ACT-034-lC 4025
EXAMINER
LUONG, HENRY T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2844
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
04/27/2016 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 STEVEN HUYNH
Appeal2014-005605
Application 12/804,835
Technology Center 2800
Before TERRY J. OWENS, PETER F. KRATZ, and KAREN M.
HASTINGS, Administrative Patent Judges.
HASTINGS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
rejection of claims 31, 32, 37--49, 51-53, and 55-58, with claims 31, 46, and
55 being independent and argued together. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 The Real Party in Interest is stated to be Active-Semi, Inc. (App. Br. 1 ).
Appeal2014-005605
Application 12/804,835
Representative claim 31 reads as follows (emphasis added):
31. An apparatus for driving light emitting diodes (LEDs)
compnsmg:
a first terminal that receives an alternating current (AC)
input voltage;
a second terminal that receives the AC input voltage,
wherein an input voltage magnitude is present between the first
terminal and the second terminal;
a rectifier coupled to the first terminal and to the second
terminal;
a current sense resistor;
a first string of N LEDs, wherein the rectifier is coupled
through the current sense resistor to the first string of LEDs,
and wherein the current sense resistor is directly connected to
the first string of LEDs;
a second string of 2N LEDs, and
a third string of 4N LEDs, wherein during a first time
period a first current flows through the first string of LEDs but
no current flows through the second or third string of LEDs,
wherein during a second time period a second current flows
through both the first string of LEDs and through the second
string of LEDs but not through the third string of LEDs,
wherein during a third time period a third current flows through
the third string of LEDs but not through either of the first string
of LEDs or the second string of LEDs, wherein N is a positive
nonzero integer, wherein the first string of LEDs, the second
string of LEDs and the third string of LEDs are connected in
series, and wherein the input voltage magnitude during the
second time period is greater than the input voltage magnitude
during the first time period.
Appellant appeals the following rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a):
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Appeal2014-005605
Application 12/804,835
(a) Claims 31, 32, 37-39, 43, 44, 46-49, 53 and 55-57 as obvious
over Shteynberg et al., (U.S. Publication 2010/0308739 Al, published Dec.
9, 201 O; hereinafter "Shteynberg"), where claims 31, 46, and 55 are
independent.
(b) Claim 40 as obvious over Shteynberg in view of Fan et al., (US
7,714,348 B2 issued May 11, 2010; hereinafter "Fan '348").
( c) Claims 41 and 52 as obvious over Shteynberg in view of Allen
et al., (US 7,679,292 B2, issued Mar. 16, 2010; hereinafter "Allen").
(d) Claims 42 and 58 as obvious over Shteynberg for different
reasons than the independent claims.
( e) Claims 45 and 51 as obvious over Shteynberg in view of Fan
(US 8,228,001B2, issued Jul. 24, 2012; hereinafter "Fan '001").
ANALYSIS
The Examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case
of obviousness. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
"[R]ejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by mere
conclusory statements; instead, there must be some articulated reasoning
with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness." In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006) quoted with
approval in KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007).
The fact finder must be aware "of the distortion caused by hindsight
bias and must be cautious of arguments reliant upon ex post reasoning."
KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. at 421 (citing Graham v. John Deere
Co., 383 U.S. 1, 36 (1966) (warning against a "temptation to read into the
prior art the teachings of the invention in issue")).
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Appeal2014-005605
Application 12/804,835
In the Final Rejection and now on appeal, the Examiner relies on
Shteynberg' s Figure 5 to disclose the apparatus for driving the series of
strings of light emitting diodes (Final Rej. 4--5; Ans. 2-3), but the Examiner
recognizes that Shteynberg's current sense resistor couples the third string of
4N LEDs to the rectifier rather than coupling the first string ofN LEDs to
the rectifier as set forth in claim 31 (Final Rej. 5; Ans. 2-3). Then, the
Examiner relies on a section of Paragraph 89 of Shteynberg's disclosure:
"current sensor 115 [which includes current sense resistor 165] may also be
provided in other locations within the apparatus 100, with all such
configuration variations considered equivalent and within the scope of the
invention as claimed ... "(Final Rej. 5; Ans. 2-3, emphasis omitted).
Therefore, the Examiner concluded that it would have been obvious to a
person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the location of the current
sensor from Shteynberg's location to the claimed location "so that current
sensing can be provided [at] any location," citing Shteynberg's Paragraph 89
(Final Rej. 5; Ans. 2-3).
Appellant, however, asserts that the claims are not obvious over
Shteynberg because a suggestion that current sensing can be provided "at
any location" does not constitute a teaching that a current sense resistor can
be placed at the particular claimed location (App. Br. 8). Moreover,
Appellant points out that one having ordinary skill in the art, when viewing
Shteynberg's LED circuit and the suggestion of Paragraph 89, would not
have departed from Shteynberg's teachings by placing the current sensor at
the high voltage position between the rectifier and the string ofN LEDs,
instead of at the low voltage position between the string of 4N LEDs and the
ground as in Shteynberg (App. Br. 8-10). If one were to do so, not only
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Appeal2014-005605
Application 12/804,835
would the proposed circuit run contrary to the teachings of Shteynberg and
the application on appeal, which both teach current sense resistors being
connected at the low voltage end of a circuit, but the proposed circuit would
also require level shifting and additional complicated circuitry (App. Br. 10;
Reply Br. 6-7).2
In an effort to rebut Appellant's statement that additional circuitry
would be required for the current sense resistor to be at the high voltage end
of Shteynberg' s circuit, the Examiner points to a j oumal article that
discusses a generic circuit with high voltage end sensing (Ans. 3--4).
Relying on the article, the Examiner states that current sensing at the high
voltage side only requires a comparator and not the complicated circuitry
indicated by Appellant (id. at 4). Because Shteynberg's Figure 5 includes a
controller and the specification states that the controller comprises a
plurality of analog comparators, the Examiner asserts that high voltage end
current sensing does not require level shifting or the circuitry as argued by
Appellant (id.).
However, the rejection of claim 31 was an obviousness rejection over
Shteynberg alone (Final Rej. 3-5). Based on Shteynberg alone, even
considering its own suggested modifications, the LED circuit would be
inoperable if the current sense resistor coupled the rectifier to the first string
of N LEDs in Shteynberg' s circuit because the resistor would then be at the
high voltage end of the circuit before the series of LED strings (Reply Br. 7-
9). Additionally, the article cited by the Examiner explains that current
2 The Examiner points out that low voltage end current sensing is not
required by the claims (Ans. 3). We agree. However, Shteynberg's current
sense resistor is designed for low voltage end sensing, so the reference
imposes limits on the position of the current sensing (Reply Br. 6-7).
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Appeal2014-005605
Application 12/804,835
sensing at circuit positions where the potential is greater than 5V, which the
article deems high voltage side positions, "appears to be a design challenge"
because the sensing requires more than a simple instrumentation amplifier
(id. at 8-9). Appellant states that the LED apparatuses of Shteynberg and
the claimed invention operate at 120V, well over the 5V limit discussed in
Examiner's cited article (id. at 9). As such, Appellant summarizes:
The article states that the problem of scaling down from high
voltages to the range of a sensing operational amplifier can be
addressed by using a resistive divider, but this "may prove not
only to be bulky and expensive, but as explained [in the article]
it can also fail to give accurate results." The article gives no
solution to high-voltage, high-side current sensing at such high
voltages as 120V.
(Id. at 9 (quoting the Examiner---citedjoumal article)). Finally, Appellant
urges that the relied upon article supports Appellant's argument that, indeed,
level shifting and additional complicated circuitry, including operational
amplifiers; current mirrors; buffers; and resistors; would be needed for high
voltage side current sensing in Shteynberg's LED apparatus (id. at 9-10).
The article relied upon by the Examiner implies that in order to make an
operable LED circuit, further modifications would require additional bulky
and expensive components. The Examiner has not even suggested that the
necessary modifications would have been obvious, and within the purview
of one having ordinary skill in the art.
In light of these concerns, the Examiner has not adequately addressed
Appellant's arguments (generally Ans.; App. Br.; Reply Br.). Therefore, we
conclude that the Examiner's rejection is improperly based upon improper
hindsight reasoning. KSR, 550 U.S. at 421.
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Appeal2014-005605
Application 12/804,835
The references as further applied in the rejection of various dependent
claims have not been relied upon by the Examiner to cure the deficiencies
noted above (See Final Rej. 11-16).
For these reasons and those set out in the Briefs, we reverse the
Examiner's§ 103(a) rejections on appeal.
CONCLUSION
In summary, the rejections before us on appeal are reversed.
REVERSED
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