Ex Parte Tuttle et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 30, 2016

12160226 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 30, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/160,226 07/08/2008 26096 7590 07/05/2016 CARLSON, GASKEY & OLDS, P,C 400 WEST MAPLE ROAD SUITE 350 BIRMINGHAM, MI 48009 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Mark Edward Tuttle 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. PA-0000839U;67097-912PUS1 8453 EXAMINER RNERA, CARLOS A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3741 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/05/2016 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): ptodocket@cgolaw.com cgolaw@yahoo.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MARK EDWARD TUTTLE, ROBERT M. SONNTAG, and JOHN H. NIXON Appeal2013-000725 Application 12/160,226 Technology Center 3700 Before DAVID M. KOHUT, ERIC B. CHEN, and BRETT C. MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judges. MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134 from a rejection of claims 1- 3 and 5-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We REVERSE. Appeal2013-000725 Application 12/160,226 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed "to combustion chamber liners for turbine engines and specifically to a crack resistant combustion chamber louver assembly." Spec. i-f 1. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A combustion chamber louver assembly, comprising: an aft louver having a forward panel that extends axially aft from a louver leading edge to a comer of the forward panel of the aft louver; and a forward louver joined to the forward panel of the aft louver and having a lip defined by a portion of the forward louver that extends axially aft past the comer of the forward panel of the aft louver to a louver trailing edge, the lip having a length L and including circumferentially distributed trailing edge slots extending forwardly from the trailing edge a nominal distance equal to about 88% to 95% of the length of the lip. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Breton Dean Hoke Berlyn Sutcu us 4,242,871 us 4,413,477 us 6,101,814 GB 1,531,690 EP 1,160,512 REJECTIONS Jan. 6, 1981 Nov. 8, 1983 Aug. 15, 2000 Nov. 8, 1978 Dec. 5, 2001 1. Claims 1-3, 6, and 11-13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hoke and Berlyn. Ans. 4. 2. Claim 5 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hoke, Berlyn, and Dean. Ans. 7. 2 Appeal2013-000725 Application 12/160,226 3. Claim 7 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hoke, Berlyn, and Breton. Ans. 8. 4. Claims 8-10, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hoke, Berlyn, and Sutcu. Ans. 9. 5. Claims 16, 17, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Moertle and Berlyn. Ans. 11. 6. Claim 18 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Moertle and Hoke. Ans. 14. OPINION Obviousness over Hoke and Berlyn Claim 1 The Appellants make two main arguments against the rejection of claim 1, namely that: 1) Berlyn fails to teach the claimed lip and therefore cannot teach the claimed slots in the lip and 2) the Examiner has not satisfied the requirements in order to assert that the claimed distance/length percentage range is a result effective variable. App. Br. 5, 6. Regarding the first argument, the Appellants mischaracterize the rejection by asserting that it is defective because Berlyn does not teach the claimed lip. The Examiner clearly states that the only thing missing from claim 1 in Hoke is the existence of slots on the trailing edge of the forward louver, i.e., Hoke teaches the claimed lip, not Berlyn. Ans. 5, cf Appellants' Fig. 1 and Hoke's Fig. IA. From these drawings alone, which are nearly identical, it is clear that the only element missing from Hoke is the claimed slots. Regardless of whether Berlyn teaches the claimed lip, it does teach slots in a trailing edge of the forward louver as claimed. The Appellants' attack on 3 Appeal2013-000725 Application 12/160,226 Berlyn as failing to teach all of the limitations of the claimed lip amounts to attacking the references individually rather than for everything that the combination teaches as a whole. Nonobviousness cannot be established by attacking the references individually when the rejection is predicated upon a combination of prior art disclosures. See In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Berlyn teaches a similar trailing edge of a forward louver and includes slots 60. See Fig. 3. Not only does Berlyn teach slots on the trailing edge of the forward louver as claimed, but it also teaches that these slots are for the exact purpose stated in the Appellants' Specification, namely stress reduction. Berlyn, col. 2, 11. 103-107. Accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that, regardless of the overall configuration of the combustion chamber of Berlyn and its differences from Hoke, the combination teaches a combustion chamber as described in Hoke with the advantage of stress reducing slots in the trailing edge of a forward louver as found in Berlyn. One of skill in the art of louvered combustion chambers looking to reduce stress in the louver of Hoke could easily tum to the prior art solution already provided by Berlyn. Other than arguing that Berlyn fails to teach the claimed lip, the Appellants provide no argument as to why the louver configuration in Berlyn is so different as to make its teaching of stress reducing slots in a trailing edge of a louver inapplicable. As such, we do not find the Appellants' Argument on this point persuasive. Regarding the result effective variable, however, we agree that the Examiner has failed to show the threshold requirement that those of skill in the art considered slot length to be a result effective variable. As the Appellants state, "Berlyn fails to recognize slot size as a result effective variable, at least because Berlyn's slots do not vary in size" and "Berlyn 4 Appeal2013-000725 Application 12/160,226 makes no connection between slot size and stress reduction." App. Br. 6. While we agree with the Examiner that Berlyn very specifically discloses that its slots 60 are intended to reduce stress (col. 2, 11. 103-107), Berlyn does not provide guidance as to whether further increasing (or reducing) slot length would reduce stress. See In re Antonie, 559 F.2d 618, (CCPA 1977) (holding that a particular parameter must first be recognized as a result- effective variable, i.e., a variable that achieves a recognized result, before the determination of the optimum or workable ranges of said variable might be characterized as routine experimentation). The Examiner's statement that "in the engineering design process, the dimensions of a feature located in a high stress area, in general, are result effective variables" does not relate with enough specificity, regardless of general rules, as to whether slot length was actually known in the art to be a result effective variable. Ans. 15. Accordingly, we reverse Rejection 1 of claims 1-3, 6, and 11-13 as obvious over Hoke and Berlyn. We note that none of Dean, Breton, or Sutcu cures this deficiency and as such also reverse Rejections 2--4 as well. Regarding the claims rejected over Moertle and Berlyn, independent claim 16 contains similar language regarding the slot size range as contained in claim 1 and the Examiner relies on the same faulty result effective variable argument as discussed above in making this rejection. Accordingly, we reverse Rejection 5 of claims 16, 17, 19, and 20. Regarding claim 18, the addition of Hoke does not cure the deficiency of Rejection 5 and so we reverse Rejection 6 on the same basis. 5 Appeal2013-000725 Application 12/160,226 DECISION The Examiner's rejection of claims 1-3 and 5-20 is reversed. REVERSED 6