Ex Parte Mazyar et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 1, 2017

14313335 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 1, 2017)

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.
14/313,335 06/24/2014 Oleg Antonovych Mazyar TYI4-51974-US-D1 5300
44639 7590 12/05/2017
TANTOR TOT RTTRN T T P- RAKFR HTTrTHFS INFORPOR ATFF)
EXAMINER
20 Church Street ZHU, WEIPING
22nd Floor
Hartford, CT 06103 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1733
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/05/2017 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):
usptopatentmail@cantorcolbum.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte OLEG ANTONOVYCH MAZYAR,
MICHAEL H. JOHNSON, and CASEY L. WALLS
Appeal 2017-0036211
Application 14/313,335
Technology Center 1700
Before MICHAEL P. COLAIANNI, N. WHITNEY WILSON, and
MERRELL C. CASHION JR., Administrative Patent Judges.
COLAIANNI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
1 The real party in interest as indicated in the Appeal Brief is “Baker Hughes
Incorporated.” App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2017-003621
Application 14/313,335
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 the final rejection of claims
1—4. We have jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
Appellants’ invention is directed to methods of manufacturing
intermetallic metallic composites (Spec. 11).
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method comprising:
disposing a layer of a second metal upon a particle that
comprises a first metal; where the first metal has a different
corrosion potential from the second metal; where the first metal
is selected from the group consisting of aluminum, magnesium,
zinc, copper, iron, nickel, cobalt, or a combination thereof;
where the second metal is selected from the group consisting of
aluminum, magnesium, zinc, copper, iron, nickel, cobalt, or a
combination thereof;
disposing a third metal upon the second metal; the third
metal having a different corrosion potential from the first metal;
where the third metal is selected from the group consisting of
nickel, zinc, iron, cobalt, tungsten, or a combination thereof;
and
sintering the particles to form a billet.
Appellants appeal the following rejections:
1. Claims 1—3 are rejected 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as unpatentable over
Jandeska (US 2006/0045787, published Mar. 2, 2006).
2. Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Jandeska.
Appellants argue subject matter in claims 1 and 4 (App. Br. 3—8).
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Application 14/313,335
FINDINGS OF FACT & ANALYSIS
Claims 1 and 4
Appellants argue that Jandeska only teaches the third or last layer on
the particles being made of copper which is not required by the claims (App.
Br. 5). Appellants argue that, even though Jandeska teaches that the second
layer may be copper and the third layer may be nickel, zinc or tin, the use of
nickel would violate Jandeska’s teaching that the liquidus temperature of the
coatings be less than the liquidus temperature of the core (Reply Br. 3).
Appellants argue that in the embodiment where the outer layer is nickel and
the second layer is copper, the nickel and copper must form an alloy that has
a liquidus temperature below the aluminum core (Reply Br. 3). The alloying
of the copper and nickel layers would result in a single alloy coating on the
aluminum particle, which is not the layer structure required by the claims.
Id.
Claim 1 is directed to a method that includes disposing a second and a
third layer of metals on a first metal core with the corrosion potential of the
second and third metal coatings being different than the first metal core and
then sintering the coated particles to form a billet. According to the claim,
the particles are formed and then sintered. The Specification discloses that
an intermetallic compound or alloy forms at the interlayer (i.e., the layer
between the first, second, and third metal layers) of the particle (Spec, f 23).
The support member 106 is disclosed as being manufactured from an alloy
or from an intermetallic compound that comprises particles having a core
upon which is disposed a first layer (Spec, f 15). Accordingly, the end
product of the method after sintering results in an alloy structure.
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Application 14/313,335
With this claim construction in mind, Appellants have not shown why
Jandeska’s particle structure, which has an aluminum core, a copper
coating, and either nickel, zinc, tin or silicon second coating that is
subsequently sintered, fails to anticipate the claim. Jandeska teaches that the
coated particles are placed layer by layer to form an article and then sintered
at 610° C at which time the layered coatings react to bond the particles
together and form the article (Jandeska f 9). It appears from Appellants’
disclosures in the Specification that Appellants’ coated particles undergo a
similar transformation in forming the alloy of the support member 106. In
other words, Appellants have not satisfied their burden of showing a
patentable distinction between Jandeska’s method that uses particles coated
with copper and nickel or zinc, which are then sintered and the claimed
method.
With regard to claims 1 and 4, Appellants argue that Jandeska fails to
teach sintering the particles to form a billet (App. Br. 6). Appellants contend
that Jandeska’s rapid prototyping process does not form a billet because
sintering the formed particles would involve sintering the surface on which
the particles are deposited as well, which would incorporate the surface into
the billet. Id. Appellants argue that “billet,” as defined in Merriam-
Webster’s Dictionary and as defined in a source from the internet, Quora,
shows that Jandeska does not teach forming a billet that requires forging and
extrusion of the metal (Reply Br. 4). With respect to the § 103 rejection of
claim 4, Appellants argue that Jandeska’s rapid prototyping process is non-
analogous art to the claimed process that forms a billet (App. Br. 7—8).
Appellants contend that Jandeska’s rapid prototyping process is not in the
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Application 14/313,335
same field of endeavor and is not pertinent to Appellants’ problem to be
solved (App. Br. 8).
Although Appellants cite two external sources for definition of billet,
Appellants have not addressed the definition of billet contained in paragraph
29 of the Specification. Specifically, paragraph 29 describes that the article
resulting from the cold-isostatic pressing, hot-isostatic pressing, spark
plasma sintering, or combinations thereof is termed a “billet.” In other
words, the intrinsic definition of “billet” is merely an article that is spark-
plasma sintered. The forging and extrusion steps are disclosed to be optional
(i.e, “may be”) with regard to the formation of a billet (Spec, f 29).
Accordingly, Appellants have not shown that the term “billet,” as used in the
claims and in light of the definition of the Specification, is patentably
distinguishable from the sintered article that results from Jandeska’s method.
Appellants’ non-analogous art argument has been considered but is
not persuasive. As noted above, “billet” in the context of the present
invention includes forming a sintered article. Jandeska forms a sintered
article and, thus, would have been in the same field of endeavor and
reasonably pertinent to Appellants’ problem of forming a sintered article.
On this record, we affirm the Examiner’s § 102 and § 103 rejections.
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision is affirmed.
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Application 14/313,335
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). See 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(f).
ORDER
AFFIRMED
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