Ex Parte Ma et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 27, 2015

12374066 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 27, 2015)

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