Ex Parte Kweon et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 24, 201712400256 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 24, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 12/400,256 03/09/2009 Chol-Bum M. Kweon P001462-PTE-CD 3702 74175 7590 01/26/2017 Harness Dickey & Pierce, P.L.C. (GM) P.O. Box 828 Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303 EXAMINER VILAKAZI, SIZO BINDA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3747 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/26/2017 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): gm-inbox@hdp.com troymailroom @hdp. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHOL-BUM M. KWEON, FREDERIC ANTON MATEKUNAS, IBRAHIM HASKARA, YUE-YUN WANG, OGNYAN N. YANAKIEV, DONALD TERRY FRENCH, and PAUL ANTHONY BATTISTON Appeal 2015-003911 Application 12/400,256 Technology Center 3700 Before LINDA E. HORNER, THOMAS F. SMEGAL, and GORDON D. KINDER, Administrative Patent Judges. HORNER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Choi-Bum M. Kweon et al. (Appellants)1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s decision, as set forth in the Final Office Action, dated February 25, 2014 (“Final Act.”), rejecting claims 1-26. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 Appellants identify GM Global Technology Operations LLC as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2015-003911 Application 12/400,256 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Appellants’ claimed subject matter relates to “engine fuel detection and control.” Spec. para. 1. Claims 1 and 11 are independent. Claim 11 is representative of the subject matter on appeal and is reproduced below. 11. A method comprising: selecting one of N cetane number (CN) values, wherein N is an integer greater than one; setting fuel injection timing based on the selected one of the N CN values; controlling a pilot fuel injection based on the selected one of the N CN values; generating a combustion noise signal indicative of a combustion noise level within a cylinder of a compression ignition (Cl) engine based on cylinder pressure in the Cl engine after the pilot fuel injection and during combustion; comparing the combustion noise signal to N predetermined combustion noise levels corresponding to the N CN values; and determining whether an actual CN value of fuel combusted by the Cl engine corresponds to the selected one of the N CN values based on the comparison. REJECTIONS The Final Action included the following grounds of rejection: 1. Claims 1^4, 6-14, 16-20, 23, and 26 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Yamaguchi (US 2007/0151542 Al, published July 5, 2007) and Masahiro (JP 09-158819 A, published June 17, 1997). Final Act. 2-5, 7. 2 Appeal 2015-003911 Application 12/400,256 2. Claims 5 and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Yamaguchi, Masahiro, and Dils (US 5,052,214 issued October 1, 1991). Id. at 6, 7. 3. Claims 21, 22, 24, and 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Yamaguchi, Masahiro, and Honda (US 2007/0175268 Al, published August 2, 2007). Id. at 6-7. ANALYSIS First Ground of Rejection With regard to independent claims 1 and 11, Appellants contend that neither Yamaguchi nor Masahiro discloses controlling a pilot fuel injection based on a selected CN value and determining whether an actual CN value corresponds to the selected CN value. Appeal Br. 10-12. The Examiner relied on Yamaguchi for disclosure of these claim limitations. Final Act. 2- 3, 7. As to Yamaguchi, the Examiner found “[i]n step S22 of Fig. 7 a ‘normal injection’ occurs” and “this ‘normal injection’ amount corresponds to the normal injection amount for a default CN value.” Ans. 3. The Examiner determined “[tjhis default CN value is the ‘selected cetane value’, and the process illustrated in Fig. 7 and described in paragraphs [0065]- [0067] determines whether or not an actual CN value corresponds to this selected CN value.” Id.', see also Final Act. 8-9 (Examiner finding “[t]he process disclosed by Yamaguchi begins with an estimated cetane number, and detects the combustion state while adjusting the pilot fuel injection amount in order to determine an actual cetane number”) (citing Yamaguchi, Figs. 10A, 10B, paras. 71, 72). Appellants reply that “Yamaguchi does not 3 Appeal 2015-003911 Application 12/400,256 teach or suggest that. . . the normal injection amount corresponds to a default CN value” and “the process of FIG. 7 does not affirm or invalidate the cetane number of the fuel being used, as the cetane number of the fuel being used is unknown at the start of the process.” Reply Br. 3.2 * 4 Yamaguchi discloses “[t]he CPU 14 estimates the cetane number CET of the fuel in use with the process shown in FIG. 7 . . . .” Yamaguchi, para. 65. In step S22 of this process, Yamaguchi explains “the normal injection control is performed, i.e., the pilot injection and the main injection are executed.” Id. at para. 66. In step S23 of this process, the pilot injection fuel amount “is reduced by a predetermined amount” and in step S24, “it is determined whether a pilot misfire has occurred in the engine 1.” Id. at para. 67. Yamaguchi discloses that steps S23 and S24 are repeated until a pilot misfires occurs. Id. at para. 69. Then, in step S25, a CET table shown 2 Appellants submit that the Examiner’s position, as set forth in the Answer as to the scope and content of Yamaguchi, amounts to a new ground of rejection. Reply Br. 4. After making this point, Appellants go on to present arguments in rebuttal to the Examiner’s position. Reply Br. 4-5. The rules governing appeals to the Board state that “[a]ny request to seek review of the primary examiner’s failure to designate a rejection as a new ground of rejection in an examiner’s answer must be by way of a petition to the Director under § 1.181 of this titled filed . . . before the filing of any reply brief.” 37 C.F.R. § 41.40(a). The matter of whether the Examiner’s position in the Answer constitutes a new ground of rejection is not properly before us. We deem Appellants, by their presentation of arguments in the Reply Brief in rebuttal to the Answer, to have waived any argument that the rejection must be designated a new ground. Id. 4 Appeal 2015-003911 Application 12/400,256 in FIG. 9 is used to “calculate an estimated cetane number CET” based on “a total reduced amount of the pilot injection.” Id. We do not find adequate disclosure in Yamaguchi to support the Examiner’s finding that the process in Yamaguchi controls a pilot fuel injection based on the selected one of the N CN values as recited in claims 1 and 11. Rather, as noted by Appellants (Reply Br. 2), Yamaguchi’s process begins with a normal pilot injection fuel amount in an idling condition. Yamaguchi, para. 66. There is insufficient evidence that this normal pilot injection fuel amount is controlled based on a selected CN value. Rather, the pilot injection fuel amount of Yamaguchi is the same every time. Appeal Br. 11 (Appellants arguing that “the table of FIG. 9 assumes that the pilot injection fuel amount is initially reduced from the same amount (i.e., the normal injection amount) every time”). While the pilot injection fuel amount may correlate with a CN value, Yamaguchi does not explicitly disclose controlling the pilot fuel injection based on a selected CN value, and we do not infer such a step from the disclosure provided in Yamaguchi. For these reasons, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 1 and 11, and their dependent claims 2—4, 6-10, 12-14, and 16-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Yamaguchi and Masahiro. Remaining Grounds of Rejection The second and third grounds of rejection rely on the same deficient findings as to the scope and content of Yamaguchi as was relied on in the first ground of rejection. Final Act. 6-7. Thus, for the reasons set forth supra, we likewise do not sustain the remaining grounds of rejection under 5 Appeal 2015-003911 Application 12/400,256 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of claims 5 and 15 as unpatentable over Yamaguchi, Masahiro, and Dils, and of claims 21, 22, 24, and 25 as unpatentable over Yamaguchi, Masahiro, and Honda. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-26 is REVERSED. REVERSED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation