GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 4, 2022

2021001003 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 4, 2022)

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. 15/452,708 03/07/2017 Mark A. Sapia 5.0046.1 (24NS311198) 9754 15624 7590 03/04/2022 Ryan Alley IP (GE Docket) P.O. Box 87 Alexandria, VA 22313 EXAMINER LEE, JOHN W ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2664 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/04/2022 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): office@alleylegal.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte MARK A. SAPIA ____________________ Appeal 2021-001003 Application 15/452,708 Technology Center 2600 ____________________ Before ERIC S. FRAHM, JASON J. CHUNG, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. INVENTION Appellant’s invention, entitled “Systems and Methods for Position Verification for Inspection and Repairs” (see Title), relates to “probes 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. “The word ‘applicant’ when used in this title refers to the inventor or all of the joint inventors, or to the person applying for a patent as provided in §§ 1.43, 1.45, or 1.46.” 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a) (2017). According to Appellant, GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas LLC is the real party in interest (Appeal Br. 1). Appeal 2021-001003 Application 15/452,708 2 capable of inspecting and/or repairing a remote object in a nuclear power plant” (Spec. ¶ 3), such as “eddy current probes, ultrasonic testers, video cameras” that can either have “their own locomotion, such as a drone or wheeled robot, or [can be] attached to the object via gearing or on a work trolley” (Spec. ¶ 3). The disclosed and claimed invention relates to non- destructive testing including “visual inspection, non-visual electromagnetic inspection (like eddy current or magnetic flux leakage), radiographic inspection with x-ray or gamma radiation, magnetic resonance inspection, etc.” (Spec. ¶ 1), and more particularly to testing of structures that are “inaccessible or difficult to visualize by a human operator or visually- verifying program” (Spec. ¶ 2) using “indirect methods of verifying texted structure location” (Spec. ¶ 2). Independent claims 1 and 13 are illustrative of the invention and are reproduced below. 1. A method verifying position of a tool, the method comprising: performing nondestructive testing on an object by transmitting nondestructive signals from an emitter onto the object; receiving, by a sensor at a position of interest, first signals generated by the nondestructive signals interacting with the object; [A] transforming, with a computer processor, the first signals into a positional fingerprint of the position; storing, in a computer database, the positional fingerprint in association with the object; receiving second signals associated with the object at an unknown position of the tool; [B] transforming, with a computer processor, the second signals into a positional fingerprint of the unknown position; comparing, with a computer processor, the positional fingerprint of the position with the positional fingerprint of the Appeal 2021-001003 Application 15/452,708 3 unknown position to determine if the tool is at the position of interest. Appeal Br. 15, Claims Appendix (emphases and bracketed lettering added). 13. A device for nondestructive testing of a remote object in a nuclear power plant, the device comprising: a nondestructive testing emitter and receiver configured to transmit nondestructive signals from an emitter onto the object and receive, at a position of interest, first signals generated by the nondestructive signals interacting with the object; and a computer processor configured to, [C] transform the first signals into a positional fingerprint of the position, and store, in a computer database, the positional fingerprint in association with the object. Appeal Br. 18, Claims Appendix (emphases and bracketed lettering added). EXAMINER’S REJECTIONS (1) The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 5-10, 12, 14, and 17-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Georgeson (US 2008/0000299 A1; published Jan. 3, 2008), D’Souza et al. (US 2009/0009488 A1; published Jan. 8, 2009) (hereinafter, “D’Souza”), and Zeger et al. (US 4,428,237; issued Jan. 31, 1984) (hereinafter, “Zeger”). Final Act. 3-9; Ans. 4-10. (2) The Examiner rejected claims 13, 15, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Georgeson and D’Souza. Final Act. 9-10; Ans. 10-11. (3) The Examiner rejected claims 3, 4, 11, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. Appeal 2021-001003 Application 15/452,708 4 § 103 as being unpatentable over Georgeson, D’Souza, Zeger, and Fletcher et al. (US 2015/0323922 A1; published Nov. 12, 2015) (hereinafter, “Fletcher”). Final Act. 10-12; Ans. 11-13. ANALYSIS We have reviewed Appellant’s arguments in the Briefs (Appeal Br. 6- 14; Reply Br. 1-9), the Examiner’s rejection (Final Act. 3-12; Ans. 4-13), and the Examiner’s response to Appellant’s arguments (Ans. 13-16). Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner has misinterpreted the claimed positional fingerprints (see Appeal Br. 7-9, 11-13; Reply Br. 1-6; see also claim 1, limitations A and B and claim 13, limitation C (reciting “positional fingerprint”)) have persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of all of the disputed claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Appellant’s arguments present the dispositive issue of whether or not the Examiner erred in finding D’Souza, and thus the combination of D’Souza and Georgeson, teaches or suggests the positional fingerprints in independent claims 1 and 13. The Examiner’s conclusion of obviousness is based on the interpretation that D’Souza’s acoustic fingerprint (see D’Souza ¶¶ 23, 24, 39) on a touch panel teaches the claimed positional fingerprints and operates in combination with the teachings of Georgeson (as to claim 13) or Georgeson and Zeger (as to claim 1) to produce the claimed invention (see Final Act. 3-5; Ans. 4-6) (as to claim 1); Final Act. 9-10; Ans. 10-11) (as to claim 13). During prosecution, claims must be given their broadest reasonable interpretation when reading claim language in light of the specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Appeal 2021-001003 Application 15/452,708 5 Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Under this standard, we interpret claim terms using “the broadest reasonable meaning of the words in their ordinary usage as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, taking into account whatever enlightenment by way of definitions or otherwise that may be afforded by the written description contained in the applicant’s specification.” In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Paragraphs 24-26 of Appellant’s Specification describe the operations shown in the flowchart of Figure 2, including the collection of testing data of an object area or position of interest (see Fig. 2, step 200), and transforming that data into a fingerprint of the position (see Fig. 2, step 201). In this manner, Appellant discloses that “data regarding constant, surrounding objects may be collected in S200 in order to permit positional verification regardless of flaw repair status” (Spec. ¶ 25). Appellant further describes that, In S201, captured data is transformed to a positional fingerprint, which is defined as simpler, characteristic information that accurately reflects positional data of the object. A positional fingerprint is useable to verify data from a different time so as to determine a positional match between time and/or datasets. Several different methods may be used to execute the transform in S201. For example, a Fourier transform may be used on a waveform graph of a sonar inspection signal, ultrasonic signal, a 2-D image capture, or other data of the object to generate component frequencies of the signal, useable as a positional fingerprint. Similarly, other selections from the data’s frequency domain could be used as the positional fingerprint. Or, for example, detected time/space domain, frequency, power, correlation, cepstrum, wavelet, and/or other detectable characteristics may be extracted from the data in S201 and transformed to a positional fingerprint. As seen in these Appeal 2021-001003 Application 15/452,708 6 examples, a positional fingerprint may be data of a list of frequency spikes or resonances or other characteristic data that is much simpler than the complete collected data in S200. Positional fingerprints, unique position identifying signals, may thus be contained concurrently with the inspection data and/or derived from unique noise patterns or other features such as machining marks. Spec. ¶ 26 (italicized and underlined emphases added). Thus, Appellant explicitly defines a positional fingerprint “as simpler, characteristic information that accurately reflects positional data” of an object (Spec. ¶ 26), and indicates the equivalence of positional fingerprints to “unique position identifying signals” (Spec. ¶ 26). The claims define the boundaries of the exclusive rights granted under 35 U.S.C. § 154, providing notice of the claim scope to the public. “[C]laim construction must begin with the words of the claims themselves.” Amgen Inc. v. Hoechst Marion Roussel, Inc., 457 F.3d 1293, 1301 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (citation omitted). In other words, “the name of the game is the claim.” In re Hiniker, 150 F.3d 1362, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 1998); see Giles S. Rich, The Extent of the Protection and Interpretation of Claims-American Perspectives, 21 Int’l Rev. Indus. Prop. & Copyright L., 497, 499 (1990) (“To coin a phrase, the name of the game is the claim.”). In this case, claims 1 and 13 make clear that the recited positional fingerprints are (i) “of the position” (claim 1, limitation A; claim 13, limitation C), which is recited as “a position of interest” where a sensor or receiver gathers nondestructive test data of an object (claims 1, 13); and (ii) “of the unknown position” of a tool (claim 1, limitation B). However, D’Souza’s acoustic fingerprints for determining touch events on a touch panel are (i) used “for detecting touch events” (see Title; Appeal 2021-001003 Application 15/452,708 7 see also ¶¶ 23, 24, 39); (ii) serve the purpose of improving the efficacy and accuracy of detecting a touch on a touch screen system (see ¶¶ 1-6); and (iii) are not positional fingerprints of positions of objects being tested as claimed, and as supported by Appellant’s description and definition of “positional fingerprints” found in paragraphs 24-26 of the Specification (see also Fig. 2). In view of the foregoing, Appellant’s arguments that D’Souza’s fingerprints used for determining touch locations on a touch screen do not meet the language of the claims (see Appeal Br. 7-9, 11-13; Reply Br. 1-6), and therefore cannot be combined with the other applied references to perform the claimed methods, are persuasive. Because Appellant’s arguments have persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1 and 13, and the claims which depend thereupon, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-20 based upon various combinations relying on D’Souza as teaching the recited positional fingerprints. DECISION SUMMARY We reverse the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Appeal 2021-001003 Application 15/452,708 8 In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 2, 5-10, 12, 14, 17-19 103 Georgeson, D’Souza, Zeger 1, 2, 5-10, 12, 14, 17- 19 13, 15, 16 103 Georgeson, D’Souza 13, 15, 16 3, 4, 11, 20 103 Georgeson, D’Souza, Zeger, Fletcher 3, 4, 11, 20 Overall Outcome 1-20 REVERSED