Ex Parte Salsbury

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 18, 2014

12125843 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 18, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ______________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ______________ Ex parte TIMOTHY SALSBURY ______________ Appeal 2012-007145 Application 12/125,843 Technology Center 2100 ______________ Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and DANIEL N. FISHMAN, Administrative Patent Judges. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1–18, 20,1 22, and 23. Claims 19 and 21 are cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 Although claim 20 is omitted from the Office Action Summary (see Final Act. mailed Oct. 28, 2010), claim 20 is included in the statement and discussion of the rejection and, thus, is deemed to be rejected. Final Act. 6, 22. Appeal 2012-007145 Application 12/125,843 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Claim 1 reads as follows: 1. A method for maintaining a first climate control setpoint for a first building zone having an environment that is affected by a second building zone’s environment, comprising: providing the first climate control setpoint to a first control loop configured to control the environment of the first building zone; providing a second climate control setpoint to a second control loop configured to control the environment of the second building zone; receiving information about an actual climate of the first building zone and an actual climate of the second building zone; and modifying the first climate control setpoint and the second climate control setpoint to compensate for interaction between the first control loop and the second control loop. Rejections Claims 1–3, 8, 9, 12–18, 20, 22, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Coogan (US 2005/0222694 A1, Oct. 6, 2005) and Garduno (Raul Garduno-Ramirez & Kwang Y. Lee, Compensation of control-loops interaction for power plant wide range operation, CONTROL ENGINEERING PRACTICE 13 (2005) 1475–1487). Ans. 5–26. Claim 4 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Coogan, Garduno, and Singers (US 5,973,662, Oct. 26, 1999). Ans. 26–28. Claim 5 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Coogan, Coogan ’282 (US 7,024,282 B2, Apr. 4, 2006), and Garduno. Ans. 28–34. Appeal 2012-007145 Application 12/125,843 3 Claims 6 and 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Coogan, Coogan ’282, Garduno, and Pachner (US 2008/0071395 A1, Mar. 20, 2008). Ans. 34–36. Claims 10 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Coogan, Garduno, and Pachner. Ans. 36–38. ANALYSIS Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) filed July 27, 2011, the Answer (“Ans.”) mailed November 23, 2011, and the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed January 22, 2012, for the respective details. We have considered in this decision only those arguments Appellant actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments that Appellant could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Based on Appellant’s arguments (App. Br. 9–27; Reply Br. 2–9), the principal and dispositive issue as to whether the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–18, 20, 22, and 23 turns on whether Coogan and Garduno teach or suggest “modifying the first climate control setpoint and the second climate control setpoint to compensate for interaction between the first control loop and the second control loop” (emphasis ours, hereinafter “disputed limitation”) as recited in independent claim 1.2 We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant’s conclusions. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by 2 Dependent claim 3 was argued together with claim 1. App. Br. 9. Appeal 2012-007145 Application 12/125,843 4 the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief. We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. In rejecting independent claim 1 over the combination of Coogan and Garduno, the Examiner finds (Ans. 5–7) Coogan discloses all the claimed features, except for the disputed limitation of claim 1. The Examiner relies on Garduno for suggesting the disputed limitation of claim 1. Ans. 6–7. In particular, the Examiner properly identifies the relevant teachings in Coogan and Garduno and states how each claimed element is met by those teachings. See Ans. 5–7, 39–46. Appellant contends, “Coogan does not mention the problem of a climate of a first zone affecting a climate of a second zone.” App. Br. 10. Appellant admits “Garduno teaches an interaction compensation scheme” (id. at 11) but contends “Garduno teaches a control loop decoupling scheme for a power plant. . . . Controller output signals are not control setpoints.” Id. at 11–12 (emphasis omitted). Appellant concedes in the Reply Brief “Garduno shows setpoints.” Reply Br. 3. The Examiner finds “Coogan teaches a system that includes two control loops receiving two setpoints to control the temperature in two zones.” Ans. 39. The Examiner also finds, and we agree, “Garduno teaches a compensation Scheme to compensate for interaction between two control loops of a power plant.” Id. We also agree with the Examiner’s explanation (Ans. 39–46), which finds Garduno’s decoupling and interaction compensation (see Garduno § 2, 1476–77) meets the function of the disputed claim element because claim 1 Appeal 2012-007145 Application 12/125,843 5 does not preclude such a reading. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). The Examiner finds, and we agree, Coogan and Garduno are properly combinable because: One skilled in the art would have known at the time of the invention that the decoupling scheme as taught by Garduno could have been applied to any plant system to solve the inherent problem of interactions between loops in a plant system. Ans. 39. We agree with the Examiner because Appellant’s citation to specific sections of Garduno and Coogan amounts to challenging the references individually, which is not convincing of error in the Examiner’s position. That is, all of the features of the structure in the secondary reference need not be bodily incorporated into the primary reference, but consideration should be given to what the combined teachings, knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art, and the nature of the problem to be solved as a whole would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). In that regard, the Supreme Court has indicated: [It is error to] assum[e] that a person of ordinary skill attempting to solve a problem will be led only to those elements of prior art designed to solve the same problem. . . . Common sense teaches . . . that familiar items may have obvious uses beyond their primary purposes, and in many cases a person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420 (2007) (citation omitted). Appeal 2012-007145 Application 12/125,843 6 Furthermore, the artisan is not compelled to blindly follow the teaching of one prior art reference over the other without the exercise of independent judgment. See Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Aeroquip Corp., 733 F.2d 881, 889 (Fed. Cir. 1984). As such, we find Coogan would be adjusted to accommodate teachings from Garduno by one of ordinary skill in the art. As correctly cited by the Examiner, one of ordinary skill would incorporate the concepts of Garduno into Coogan without incorporating every feature of the Garduno principle into Coogan. Appellant provides additional arguments with respect to the patentability of claims 2, 4, 5–18, 20, 22, and 23 (App. Br. 19–27). The Examiner has rebutted each of those arguments in the Answer by a preponderance of the evidence (Ans. 8–38, 46–49). Therefore, we agree with the Examiner’s findings and underlying reasoning and adopt them as our own. Consequently, we conclude there is no reversible error in the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–18, 20, 22, and 23. DECISION The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–18, 20, 22, and 23 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)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED msc