Ex Parte Ma et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 27, 201512374066 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 27, 2015) 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. 12/374,066 05/19/2009 Ce Ma M06A212 5612 20411 7590 07/27/2015 The BOC Group, Inc. 575 MOUNTAIN AVENUE MURRAY HILL, NJ 07974-2082 EXAMINER CHEN, BRET P ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1715 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/27/2015 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 CE MA, PATRICK J. HELLY, and QING MIN WANG ____________ Appeal 2013-010620 Application 12/374,0661 Technology Center 1700 ____________ Before KAREN M. HASTINGS, GEORGE C. BEST, and JEFFREY W. ABRAHAM, Administrative Patent Judges. HASTINGS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of a decision of the Primary Examiner to reject claim 6 under 35 U.S.C. §103 (a) based on the combined prior art of Lee (US 2004/0113195 A1, pub. June 17, 2004) and Thakur (US 2003/0172872 A1, pub. Sept. 18, 2003), optionally with Ahn (US 2004/0023461 A1, pub. Feb. 5, 2004). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6. Upon consideration of the appeal record, including the Appellants’ position in this appeal as set forth on pages 10–12 of the Appeal Brief, we 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest “are the inventors, and the assignee of the invention, Linde AG” (Appeal Brief filed April 10, 2013, hereinafter “Br.,” at 3). Appeal 2013-010620 Application 12/374,066 2 affirm the Examiner’s rejection for the reasons stated by the Examiner (Final Act. mailed July 13, 2012 at 4–6; Examiner’s Answer mailed June 13, 2013 at 5, 6). Notably, Appellants have not presented any cogent arguments sufficient to address the Examiner’s position (Br. 10 (merely asserting without any analysis that the Examiner used “hindsight reconstruction based solely on the presentation of the invention” to combine the references so as to result in the subject matter of claim 6)). Cf. In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“[W]e hold that the Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the prior art.” Because Lovin did not provide such arguments, the Board did not err in refusing to separately address claims 2–15, 17–24, and 31–34.”). No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1). AFFIRMED mp Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation