Ex Parte Klasing et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 25, 2012

11507116 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 25, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________
Ex parte KEVIN SAMUEL KLASING, CHING-PANG LEE,
PAUL HADLEY VITT, and BRIAN DAVID KEITH
____________________

Appeal 2010-005490
Application 11/507,116
Technology Center 3700
____________________

Before: NEAL E. ABRAMS, CHARLES N. GREENHUT, and
REMY J. VANOPHEM, Administrative Patent Judges.

GREENHUT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1-
6, 8-16, 19, 20, and 22-26. App. Br. 4. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We affirm.

The claims are directed to a tip ramp turbine blade. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A turbine blade comprising:
a hollow airfoil, platform, and integral dovetail;
said airfoil including transversely opposite pressure and
suction sides extending chordally between opposite leading and
trailing edges, and longitudinally in span from root to tip;
said tip including first and second tip ribs extending
outwardly from a tip floor along said pressure and suction sides
between said leading and trailing edges to define a tip cavity,
and said tip floor enclosing an internal cooling circuit; and
an exit ramp bridging said first and second ribs at an aft
junction thereof near said trailing edge and rising in elevation
aft from said tip floor.

REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Caudill
Carreno
Braddy
Updegrove
US 3,854,842
US 4,497,613
US 4,761,116
US 6,502,303
Dec. 17, 1974
Feb. 5, 1985
Aug. 2, 1988
Jan. 7, 2003

REJECTIONS
Claims 1-6, 8-16, 19, 20, 22 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) as being unpatentable over Braddy and Carreno. Ans. 3.
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Claim 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over Braddy, Carreno, and Updegrove. Ans. 5.
Claims 25 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Braddy, Carreno, and Caudill. Ans. 5-6.

OPINION
The Examiner correctly found that the acknowledged prior art
discussed in Braddy (Figs. 1, 2) demonstrates that the basic blade claimed
was known in the art. Ans. 3. Cooling air from the interior cavity 42 of
Braddy’s acknowledged prior art turbine blades enters the plenum 70
through holes 72, 76. As an outlet for that cooling air, Braddy modifies the
plenum 96 to include openings 86. See Fig. 3. Carreno teaches that it was
known in the art to modify an abrupt transition at the trailing edge of an
internal cavity of a turbine blade or bucket 28 (col. 3, ll. 35-36, Figs. 2-5)
with a gradual transition 68 (Figs. 6, 7). Col. 5, ll. 48-55. According to
Carreno, this modification discourages stress, and therefore cracking. Col. 5,
ll. 37-54. Carreno instructs that the depth 74 of that gradual transition below
tip 46 will be dictated by the bucket design. Col. 5, ll. 62-63. Carreno also
notes that the modification is relatively simple and inexpensive to produce.
Col. 6, ll. 18-26.
Regardless of the fact that Carreno’s cavity is relatively deep while
Braddy’s plenums are relatively shallow, we agree with the Examiner that
due to the impingement of air exiting the interior of a blade upon the trailing
edge of a plenum such as Braddy’s (see, e.g., flow lines in Braddy Figure 2
and Application Figure 3), there would have been a reasonable expectation
that the trailing edge of Braddy’s plenums would have experienced stress
concentrations similar in nature to those experienced in the blades or buckets
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Carreno sought to improve upon. Consequently, we agree with the Examiner
that it would have been obvious to incorporate Carreno’s transition area into
Braddy’s blade in order to derive a similar benefit. A gradual as opposed to
an abrupt transition in the flow path would also create a more efficient
aerodynamic design, which both Braddy and Carreno demonstrate is
recognized in the art as desirable. Braddy col. 4, ll. 27-30; Carreno col. 4, ll.
17-23.
The Examiner correctly found that Updegrove demonstrates that it
was known in the art to use ribs extending from the convex to concave walls
of a blade tip to improve the strength of turbine blades. Ans. 5; Updegrove
col. 2, ll. 5-6. The Examiner also correctly found that Caudill demonstrates
that it was known in the art to extend similar ribs chordally to improve
circulation of cooling air in the blade tip and sealing of that tip with the
associated shroud. Ans. 6; Caudill col. 2, ll. 1-3. We agree with the
Examiner’s conclusion that it would have been obvious to incorporate these
known structures into Braddy in order to achieve the predictable results
expressly described in Updegrove and Caudill. Ans. 5, 6.
Appellants make a number of conclusory allegations regarding the
Examiner’s position, for example that the Examiner failed to consider the
references as a whole, disregarded teachings that would have led away from
the claimed combination, and relied upon hindsight to pick and choose
discrete elements from the prior art. However, Appellants do not provide any
concrete facts or cogent reasoning in support of these allegations.
Appellants’ Briefs contain many rhetorical questions that do not serve to
apprise us of error in the Examiner’s factual and legal determinations. Many
of Appellants’ comments have no legal significance. For example, the
requirement to consider whether an area is esoteric when taking official
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notice (Reply Br. 2) is not relevant in this case because no facts were
officially noticed. The Examiner attempts to give some relevancy to such
arguments (Ans. 7), but we see none. Obviousness is judged from the
perspective of one of ordinary skill in the art, regardless of whether that art
is esoteric or not. Dann v. Johnston, 425 U.S. 219, 220-227 (1976).
Where Appellants argue the propriety of the Examiner’s proposed
combination of prior art references, or whether such combination would
yield the claimed subject matter, due to, for example the Examiner’s claim
construction, we believe the Examiner’s Answer to have thoroughly and
comprehensively addressed these arguments. Accordingly, we adopt as our
own the Examiner’s factual and legal determinations (Ans. 3-6), and the
Examiner’s response to Appellants’ arguments (Ans. 7-21). See In re
Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1478 n. 6 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
While we have little to add to the Examiner’s remarks, we
additionally note the following:
Rejections based on a combination of references often require a
determination of whether the combined teachings of those references renders
obvious a combination of particular elements of each reference arranged
according to the claim in question. The mandate not to “pick and choose”
(App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 4) prohibits the Examiner from doing so to “support
a given position, to the exclusion of other parts necessary to the full
appreciation of what such reference fairly suggests to one of ordinary skill in
the art.” In re Wesslau, 353 F.2d 238, 241 (CCPA 1965). This mandate does
not force the Examiner to consider the skilled artisan an automaton who
would appreciate the teachings of the prior art as relevant only to the specific
structures of the embodiments disclosed therein. In re Wood, 599 F.2d 1032,
1037 (CCPA 1979); KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007).
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“[I]n many cases a person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of
multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle.” KSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S.
at 420. Both Braddy and Carreno make it clear that one of ordinary skill in
the art should not interpret their contributions as limited to the specific
embodiments described. Braddy col. 5, ll. 19-20; Carreno col. 6, ll. 32-35.
The Examiner did not “disregard” the structural differences between the
blades of Braddy or Carreno. Contra App. Br. 15. Rather, the Examiner
correctly determined that it would have been obvious to incorporate
Carreno’s technique of using a gradual transition to improve upon the
trailing edge of a cavity into Braddy’s plenum despite those differences.
Ans. 10-11.
Regarding claims 3 and 12, Appellants contend that the Examiner’s
proposed modification would yield a perpendicular interface at Braddy’s tip
floor. App. Br. 18. First, Carreno suggests no such thing. The interface at the
floor of Carreno’s cavity1 is a smooth one. See Fig. 2. We see no reason such
a feature would not be preserved when incorporating Carreno’s teachings
into Braddy, albeit with a much shallower depth 74. The Examiner
articulates a rational reason why it would be undesirable to do so. Ans. 13.
We also note that the feature upon which Appellants rely, smoothness, is not
recited. See In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1348 (CCPA 1982) (limitations not
appearing in the claims cannot be relied upon for patentability).
Regarding claims 24 and 35, Appellants allege that the Examiner’s
proposed combination would have detrimental effects. However, the
Examiner properly recognized that one of ordinary skill in the art would

1 We understand the Examiner’s reference to numeral 58 when discussing
this floor as referring to the unenumerated lower portion of cavity 44
blending into the rear wall 58.
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weigh both the advantages and disadvantages of a particular course of
action. Ans. 16-17 (citing Updegrove); see Winner Int'l Royalty Corp. v.
Wang, 202 F.3d 1340, 1349 n. 8 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (“The fact that the
motivating benefit comes at the expense of another benefit, however, should
not nullify its use as a basis to modify the disclosure of one reference with
the teachings of another. Instead, the benefits, both lost and gained, should
be weighed against one another.”).
Regarding claims 25 and 26 (App. Br. 27-31), we see nothing
unreasonable in interpreting a baffle extending to the intersection of a first
and second rib as each of, independently, a baffle extending to a first rib and
a baffle extending to a second rib. Nor do we regard the ribs of Caudill
incompatible with the ramp of Carreno. The space between rib and shroud
could be optimized according to Caudill’s teachings regardless of whether
the tip has a consistent depth beneath the opposite end of the trailing edge of
the rib. See Caudill col. 5, ll. 3-25; fig. 3.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-6, 8-16, 19, 20, and 22-26 are
affirmed.

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED
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