Ex Parte Jung

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 29, 2019

14898709 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Mar. 29, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/898,709 12/15/2015 27367 7590 04/02/2019 WESTMAN CHAMPLIN & KOEHLER, P.A. SUITE 1400 900 SECOND A VENUE SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Boudewijn Casper Jung 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. I056.1003US1 4706 EXAMINER LAGMAN, FREDERICK LYNDON ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3678 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/02/2019 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@wck.com tsorbel@wck.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BOUDEWIJN CASPER JUNG Appeal2018-006495 Application 14/898,709 Technology Center 3600 Before BRETT C. MARTIN, MICHAEL J. FITZPATRICK, and JEREMY M. PLENZLER, Administrative Patent Judges. MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal2018-006495 Application 14/898,709 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellant, IHC Holland I.E. B.V., appeals under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134 from the Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 2, 4--9, 11, and 15-23. Claims 3, 10, 12, and 13 stand objected to as allowable but dependent upon a rejected base claim, and claim 14 was cancelled during prosecution. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We REVERSE. THE INVENTION Appellant's claims are directed to "determining or measuring parameters of a pile and/or driving a pile." Spec. 1, 11. 9-10. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A pile measuring system suitable for determining one or more parameters of a pile during pile driving of the pile, said pile drivable into ground by a pile driver, said pile driver comprising a hammer and a sleeve, said hammer and said sleeve placed at a top of the pile, said pile measuring system comprising: at least one positioning sensor, wherein the at least one positioning sensor is attached or attachable to a location on the sleeve and configured to measure position coordinates of the respective location on the sleeve during pile driving of the pile; and a parameter calculator configured to determine the one or more parameters of the pile from the position coordinates measured by the at least one positioning sensor during pile driving of the pile. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: McVay Daniel US 2002/0148298 Al Oct. 17, 2002 US 2008/0177450 Al Jul. 24, 2008 2 Appeal2018-006495 Application 14/898,709 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1, 2, 5-9, 11, 15, and 17-23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Appellant's admitted prior art ("APA") and Daniel. Ans. 3. Claims 4 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over APA, Daniel, and McVay. Ans. 5. ANALYSIS The Examiner rejects each of independent claims 1, 11, and 15 over Daniel and AP A. Ans. 3. According to the Examiner, AP A discloses all of the claimed elements except for a positioning sensor on the sleeve. Ans. 4. The Examiner then concludes that it would have been obvious to combine the mast-attached sensor of Daniel with AP A "in order to facilitate correction of position and/or orientation when driving a pile." Id (emphasis added). It is clear from Appellant's Specification that the present system and method are intended to monitor position of the pile during driving activities and this aspect is specifically claimed. As Appellant points out, however, "all of the alignment of Daniel is done pre-drilling/pre-driving." Br. 13. This is most clear from paragraph 58, which explains that a lock condition is determined on the location as well as the drilling mast, at which point the drilling and/or pile-driving operation "is performed under the control of a separate system, which returns control to the present system once the operation is completed." Daniel ,r 58 ( emphasis omitted). 3 Appeal2018-006495 Application 14/898,709 In other words, Daniel is not concerned with monitoring the location of the sleeve during drilling or pile-driving as it locks out the positioning system and switches to a different system to perform the actual drilling/driving. It uses the sensor only to align a drilling/driving vehicle with a predetermined bore location and no parameter sensing occurs again until the rig is prepared to move to a new location. At this point, Daniel reengages its positioning system to guide the vehicle to a new location. Also, contrary to the Examiner's assertion, it does not matter that Daniel discloses that this may be a unified system as well as a separate system because it is clear that the positioning system or portion of the unified system is only used to move the vehicle, not to monitor the actual drilling/driving operation, which is what is required by the claims. The only mention in Daniel of using the positioning systems is, as Appellant states, either pre- or post-drilling/driving. Mc Vay does not cure this deficiency in Daniel. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejections. DECISION For the above reasons, we REVERSE the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1, 2, 4--9, 11, and 15-23. REVERSED 4