Ex Parte Jairazbhoy et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 25, 2019

14189123 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 25, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/189, 123 02/25/2014 28395 7590 03/27/2019 BROOKS KUSHMAN P.C./FG1L 1000 TOWN CENTER 22NDFLOOR SOUTHFIELD, MI 48075-1238 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Vivek Amir Jairazbhoy 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. 83383569 7463 EXAMINER NEDIALKOV A, LILIA V ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1724 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/27/2019 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): docketing@brookskushman.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte VIVEK AMIR JAIRAZBHOY, GEORGE ALBERT GARFINKEL, and NEIL ROBERT BURROWS Appeal2017-006347 Application 14/189, 123 Technology Center 1700 Before MARK NAGUMO, MICHELLE N. ANKENBRAND, and CHRISTOPHER L. OGDEN, Administrative Patent Judges. OGDEN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 Appellant2 appeals under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's final decision rejecting claims 1-16, and 19-20 in the above-identified application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b)(l). We affirm in part. 1 The appeal record includes the following: Specification, Feb. 25, 2014 ("Spec."); Final Office Action, May 13, 2016 ("Final Action"); Appeal Brief (Nov. 14, 2016) ("Appeal Br."); Examiner's Answer, Dec. 29, 2016 ("Answer"); Reply Brief, Feb. 28, 2017 ("Reply Br."). 2 Appellant is the Applicant, Ford Global Technologies, LLC, which according to Appellant is also the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal2017-006347 Application 14/ 189, 123 BACKGROUND Appellant's invention relates to "thermal management systems for high voltage batteries utilized in vehicles." Spec. ,r 1. Figure 5, an embodiment, is reproduced below: t l i / l/" i ,/ //i i ) 1 l l 1 1' / / i i I / I l / / / / / / / / ., / ./ / )/ /!'/ /,. /// /,.. ,////,,,/ /1/ l// J ., l,l ll1 ll l~I /l1 i.l,.f // /,.1 â€¢ , â€¢ Â·I ,Â· â€¢ 1 ~ t ' r r 1 1 1 i i , i r . i " .. t 1 1 1 , . 1 r H30 168 1 1t:i8 t 168 [ 168 i 16S (151 1681158 f 166 1 16H, . 160 %0 4 GU 1 BO HJ.ti 'H:iO 't:60 160 FIG. 5 Figure 5 is a plan view of thermal plate 146, supporting an array of battery cells. Spec. ,r,r 11-13, 37. The plate defines a series of "u-channel configurations" 150, each of which is associated with a respective battery cell represented by dashed line footprints 158. Id. ,r 38. The arrows show the direction of flow of a thermal fluid: fluid enters each u-channel at inlet 162 in one direction, changes direction at router 164, and exits at outlet 168, where it collects at an outlet plenum (not shown). See id. ,r,r 38-39. Independent claim 1 reads as follows: 1. A vehicle comprising: a plurality of battery cells; an outlet plenum; and 2 Appeal2017-006347 Application 14/ 189, 123 a thermal plate supporting all of the plurality of battery cells, and having u-channel configurations each defining a flow path the entirety of which corresponds to only one of the plurality of battery cells and includes an inlet and outlet on a same side of the thermal plate, wherein fluid exiting the outlets empties into the outlet plenum external to the thermal plate. Appeal Br. 12 (emphasis of key phrase added). Claims 8 and 14 are also independent, and recite substantially similar limitations as relevant to this appeal. Id. at 13-14. Claims 2-7 depend directly or indirectly from claim 1, claims 9-13 depend directly or indirectly from claim 8, and claims 15, 16, and 18-20 depend directly or indirectly from claim 14. Id. at 12-15. The Examiner rejects claims 15, 16, and 18-20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 112(b) (2012) as being indefinite. Final Action 2--4. The Examiner also rejects claims 1-16 and 18-20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103 (2012) as being unpatentable (1) over Fuhr3 in view of Cha4 and Kurosawa, 5 and (2) over Cha in view of Fuhr. Id. at 4--23. DISCUSSION Rejections under 35 USCÂ§ 112(b) Claims 15, 16, and 18-20 depend directly or directly from independent claim 14. See Appeal Br. 14--15. Whereas claim 14 uses the word u-channel, the dependent claims use only the word channel; thus, the Examiner determines that the dependent claims lack antecedent basis. Final Action 2--4. Therefore, the Examiner rejects claims 15, 16, and 18-20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 112(b) as being indefinite. Id. 3 Fuhr et al., US 2012/0148889 Al (published June 14, 2012) ("Fuhr"). 4 Cha et al., US 2013/0164576 Al (published June 27, 2013) ("Cha"). 5 Kurosawa, US 2011/0200862 Al (published Aug. 18, 2011). 3 Appeal2017-006347 Application 14/ 189, 123 Appellant does not address this rejection in the Appeal Brief. In the Reply Brief, Appellant attempts to amend the claims to address the Examiner's rejection. See Reply Br. 2---6. However, this amendment is untimely. See 37 C.F.R. Â§ 4I.47(b)(l) ("A reply brief shall not include any new or non-admitted amendment .... "). Because it is uncontested, we summarily affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 15, 16, and 18-20 underÂ§ 112(b). See Hyatt v. Dudas, 551 F.3d 1307, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (holding that the Board need not consider the merits of an uncontested ground of rejection). Rejections under 35 US.C. Â§ 103 The Examiner rejects claims 1-16 and 18-20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103 as being unpatentable (1) over Fuhr in view of Cha and Kurosawa, and (2) over Cha in view of Fuhr. Final Action 4--23. We treat these rejections together, because the ordering of Fuhr and Cha is not material to the reversible error that Appellant has identified in the Examiner's rejections. See In re Bush, 296 F.2d 491,496 (CCPA 1961) (holding, on the facts of that case, that the ordering of references was not material to the obviousness analysis (citing In re Cowles, 156 F.2d 551, 554 (CCPA 1946))). Fuhr discloses a thermal management system for a battery module, as exemplified below in Figure 14E: 4 Appeal2017-006347 Application 14/ 189, 123 Fuhr's Figure 14E is a partial top view of battery module 622, comprising a stack of battery cells 624. Fuhr ,r,r 25, 102-103. Separator 678 divides module 622 into an upper portion and a lower portion, so that thermal fluid enters the lower portion, flows perpendicularly to the battery cells ( as shown by the horizontal arrows), turns around within connection member 690, and then flows perpendicularly to the cells in the opposite direction. Id. ,r,r 102- 103. The Examiner identifies this arrangement as a "u-channel configuration" corresponding to the limitation in independent claims 1, 8, and 14. Final Action 5, 8, 11, 15, 17-18, 20-21. However, the Examiner finds that Fuhr describes cooling an entire battery module, and does not teach that the entirety of each u-channel corresponds to only one of the plurality of battery cells, as recited in the independent claims. Id. at 5, 9, 12. Cha also discloses a thermal management system for a battery module, as exemplified below in Figure 2A: 5 Appeal2017-006347 Application 14/ 189, 123 FIG. 2A Cha's Figure 2A is a schematic view of the flowpath of a heat exchange fluid through heat exchanging member 100, which supports the bottom surfaces of a series of battery cells. See Cha ,r,r 20, 39. Heat exchanging member 100 comprises a series of parallel tubes 110, each tube corresponding to a battery cell above it. Id. ,r 41. As the arrows indicate, the thermal fluid flows in parallel through each tube. See id. ,r,r 40-41. According to the Examiner, a person of ordinary skill in the art, applying the teachings of Cha, would have had reason "to adapt Fuhr's tray (642, 'thermal plate') with its u-channel for the purpose of cooling an individual prismatic battery cell, instead of a full battery module, for the purpose of providing uniform cooling to each battery cell within a battery cell assembly." Final Action 6; accord id. at 9, 12-13. In addition, while Cha does not teach that each flowpath 110 is a u-channel, the Examiner 6 Appeal2017-006347 Application 14/ 189, 123 states that Fuhr compares straight flow with u-shaped flow through a battery module as a whole, and "teaches that the u-channel configuration is superior, because it allows for more even cooling of the battery module." Id. at 15 ( citing Fuhr ,r 103); accord id. at 18, 21; see also Answer 23 ( explaining in more detail why a skilled artisan would have found Fuhr's disclosed u- shaped flow arrangement to be advantageous). Appellant argues that, based on the teachings of Fuhr and Cha, a person of ordinary skill in the art "would be motivated at best to use au- channel to cool a batch of cells and a single direction channel to cool a single cell." Appeal Br. 9. According to Appellant, the Examiner identifies "no other teaching in the art that would direct the skilled artisan of the alleged interchangeability of the two differing channel types for the different purposes of cooling a batch of cells versus an individual cell." Id.; see also id. at 9 ( arguing that the Examiner provides no rationale for why a skilled artisan would have considered the cooling effects of the claimed invention to be as effective as in either Char or Fuhr); Reply Br. 7 (same). The Examiner has presented evidence that a skilled artisan generally would have been motivated to adopt au-shaped flowpath within a battery cell module, and would have been aware of at least one non-u-shaped design for cooling each battery cell individually. However, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not articulated a sufficient rationale for why a skilled artisan would have adopted the particular design of the claimed invention, in which each battery cell is associated with a separate u-channel configuration. Consequently, we hold that the Examiner reversibly erred in rejecting independent claims 1, 8, and 14 over any combination of Fuhr and Cha. 7 Appeal2017-006347 Application 14/ 189, 123 The Examiner makes no findings of fact in the rejection of dependent claims 2-7, 9-13, 15, 16, and 18-20 that remedy the above deficiency. In addition, while the Examiner cites Kurosawa as an additional reference teaching "multiple battery cells on a single tray," Final Action 6, 9, 13, the Examiner's use of Kurosawa does not remedy the above deficiency. Thus, we reverse the Examiner's rejections of 1-16 and 18-20 as being unpatentable over Fuhr in view of Cha and Kurosawa, or as being unpatentable over Cha in view of Fuhr. CONCLUSION The following table summarizes the decision: 15, 16, 18-20 Â§ 112(b) n/a 15, 16, 18-20 none 1-16 18-20 ' Â§ 103 Fuhr, Cha, none 1-16 18-20 ' Kurosawa 1-16 18-20 ' Â§ 103 Cha, Fuhr none 1-16 18-20 ' Summar 15, 16, 18-20 1-14 DECISION The Examiner's decision is affirmed as to claims 15, 16, and 18-20, and reversed as to claims 1-14. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal maybe extended. See 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(l)(iv) (2018). AFFIRMED-IN-PART 8