Ex Parte Yilmaz et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 26, 201310597338 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 26, 2013) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte NAMIK YILMAZ and CEM KURAL ____________________ Appeal 2011-010141 Application 10/597,338 Technology Center 3700 ____________________ Before: GAY ANN SPAHN, JOHN W. MORRISON, and HYUN J. JUNG, Administrative Patent Judges. JUNG, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-010141 Application 10/597,338 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Namik Yilmaz and Cem Kural (Appellants) appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Maehara (US 5,091,617; iss. Feb. 25, 1992) and Nilssen (US 4,956,581; Sep. 11, 1990). App. Br. 6. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM-IN-PART. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are related to “a high-frequency heating device with an increased operating efficiency wherein a magnetron driven by an inverter is utilized.” Spec. 1, para. [001]. Sole independent claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the appealed subject matter: 1. A high-frequency heating device comprising: a magnetron generating microwave energy, a filament circuit, and an inverter comprising a wave multiplexer coupled to a resonant circuit which ensures that the magnetron is powered by high-frequency rectified voltage obtained from a network coupled to the resonant circuit and, wherein voltage obtained from the high-frequency current coming from the resonant circuit is multiplied by being raised and rectified, and wherein the inverter which includes a low- pass filter placed between the wave multiplexer and the ground, providing that low-frequency noise is eliminated from the current without decreasing the voltage and that the current applied to the magnetron is smoothed. Appeal 2011-010141 Application 10/597,338 3 ANALYSIS The Examiner finds that Maehara discloses the subject matter of claim 1 except that Maehara fails to disclose a low-pass filter connected to the ground. Ans. 3-4. The Examiner finds that “Nilssen discloses a low-pass filter connecting to the ground” and concludes that “[i]t would have been obvious to one [of] ordinary skill in the art . . . to utilize in Maehara to replace a noise filter with a low-pass filter connecting to the ground as taught by Nilssen in order to reduce noise from the feeding circuit.” Id. at 4. The Appellants argue that “the Examiner provided no rationale to support a legal conclusion of obviousness with this statement.” App. Br. 11; see also Reply Br. 2-3. The Appellants further argue that “the Examiner has not made any articulated reasoning nor has he identified a reason that would have cause[d] the Applicant to combine Maehara and Nilssen” and that “the Examiner is required to specifically state some reason for the elements of the prior art to be combined” thus, “there is no such reasoning.” App. Br. 11 and Reply Br. 2-3. These arguments are not persuasive as the Examiner has articulated a reason with a rational underpinning that supports the legal conclusion of obviousness with respect to the proposed combination of Maehara and Nilssen, namely, “in order to reduce noise from the feeding circuit.” Ans. 4 (emphasis added). Moreover, the Examiner need not provide articulated reasoning for the Appellants to combine Maehara and Nilssen; instead, the Examiner needs to provide articulated reasoning for one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Maehara and Nilssen. The Appellants also argue that “the Examiner’s reasoning to combine Maehara and Nilssen to render Applicant’s invention obvious is unclear” and that the “conclusory, one sentence statement of the Examiner regarding Appeal 2011-010141 Application 10/597,338 4 the combination of Maehara and Nilssen does not provide the Applicant with an understanding of why a person of ordinary skill in the art would combine the inventions to create Applicant’s invention.” App. Br. 11; see also Reply Br. 2-3. The Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive. The Examiner’s stated reasoning for modifying Maehara with the teachings of Nilssen is “to reduce noise from the feeding circuit.” Ans. 4. The record indicates that the Examiner concludes that a person of ordinary skill in the art would modify Maehara with the low-pass filter of Nilssen to reduce noise from a circuit upstream of Maehara’s magnetron in view of Maehara’s teaching of a noise dampening filter. See Ans. 3-4. Also, as indicated by the Appellants’ arguments regarding the low-pass filter of Nilssen, discussed infra, the Examiner’s stated reasoning is not so unclear that the Appellants could not argue why Nilssen would not be combined with Maehara. See App. Br. 12. The Appellants assert that “the Examiner has impermissibly used hindsight to find Applicant’s invention obvious under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) and has used the Applicant’s claims as a roadmap for formulating the obviousness rejection.” App. Br. 11. The argument is not persuasive. In this instance, the Examiner finds that Maehara discloses a noise dampening filter for a magnetron and that Nilssen teaches a low-pass filter connected to ground. Ans. 4 (citing Maehara, col. 7, ll. 45-48); see also Nilssen, col. 7, ll. 18-22 (stating “[d]ue to the filtering by capacitor C and inductor L . . . , the anode current provided to the magnetron in that arrangement becomes continuous and substantially constant in magnitude”) and fig. 2. Thus, because Maehara and Nilssen articulate both a reason and a suggestion to make the proposed Appeal 2011-010141 Application 10/597,338 5 modification, there is no basis to conclude that the Examiner improperly relied upon hindsight to reach a conclusion of obviousness as the Appellants suggest. The Appellants argue that “the elements disclosed in Maehara and Nilssen differ from the Applicant’s claims and cannot be combined to create Applicant’s invention.” App. Br. 11. The Appellants’ terse and conclusory argument is not persuasive as it does not coherently point out how the elements of Maehara and Nilssen are different from the claimed elements such that the Examiner’s findings are not supported by the cited references. The Examiner finds that Maehara teaches a magnetron, a filament circuit, an inverter, and a resonant circuit. Ans. 3-4. The Examiner also finds that Nilssen teaches a low-pass filter connected to ground. Ans. 4. Without further explanation, we have no basis to find error in the Examiner’s findings. The Appellants argue that “Maehara does not disclose Applicant’s claim 1 and explicitly teaches away from the information cited therein as it listed this information as ‘prior art,’ and Maehara discloses its invention to solve these ‘problems’ that lead away from using a low pass filter.” App. Br. 12; see also Reply Br. 3. The Appellants thus assert that “Maehara does not disclose Applicant’s claim 1 and, in fact, teaches away therefrom.” App. Br. 12. The argument is not persuasive because Maehara’s description of the prior art does not cause Maehara to fail to disclose what the prior art teaches. Also, we do not find, nor do the Appellants point to, any portion of Maehara that criticizes, discredits, or discourages the solution claimed or that, upon reading, would lead a person of ordinary skill in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the Appellants. In particular, Maehara’s disclosed Appeal 2011-010141 Application 10/597,338 6 invention includes a magnetron 39, a filament circuit 38, an inverter 33, and a resonant circuit 36, 37, 56, and thus does not teach away from similar elements of the prior art as described by Maehara. See Maehara, col. 4, ll. 63-65; col. 5, ll. 3-9 and 65; and fig. 7. Furthermore, the Examiner finds that Maehara discloses a noise dampening filter for a magnetron (see Ans. 3-4), and thus, does not teach away from such filters. The Appellants argue that (1) “because Nilssen does not describe a high-frequency heating where current is smoothed without decreasing the voltage,” (2) because “it appears that both the current and voltage in Nilssen would be decreased,” and (3) because “Nilssen is directed to an invention of the ‘crest-factor’ of the current supplied to the magnetron . . . , it would not have been obvious of the Applicant to look to Maehara as combined with Nilssen to create the invention.” App. Br. 12 and Reply Br. 3. The argument is not persuasive. First, obviousness is determined from the view point of one of ordinary skill in the art, not the Appellants. Second, the Examiner cites Nilssen for teaching a low-pass filter connected to ground. See Ans. 4. While capacitor C and inductor L are only depicted in Figure 2 of Nilssen, both the first and second preferred embodiments shown in Figures 1 and 2 of Nilssen provide current to a magnetron at a particular crest-factor. See Nilssen, col. 1, l. 61 to col. 2, l. 12. Thus, the capacitor C and inductor L of Figure 2 are not necessary for achieving a particular crest-factor. See also Nilssen, col. 7, ll. 18-22 (stating “[d]ue to the filtering by capacitor C and inductor L in the circuit arrangement of FIG. 2, the anode current provided to the magnetron in that arrangement becomes continuous and substantially constant in magnitude”). The Examiner is not proposing to combine Maehara with other parts of Nilssen. See Ans. 4. Appeal 2011-010141 Application 10/597,338 7 The Appellants argue that the Examiner did not address claims 2 and 3. Reply Br. 3-4. The argument is persuasive because, although the Examiner’s rejection may be read as encompassing claims 2 and 3, the Examiner does not make factual findings or provide reasoning as to how the Examiner’s proposed combination of Maehara and Nilssen renders obvious that “the current applied to magnetron has a sinusoidal form,” as recited by claim 2, or that “the current applied to magnetron has been changed from a square-wave form to a sinusoidal form,” as recited by claim 3. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Maehara and Nilssen, but are constrained to reverse the rejection of claims 2 and 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Maehara and Nilssen. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claim 1 and reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 2 and 3. 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-IN-PART hh Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation