Justus Dahlén et al.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardSep 9, 201913990980 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 9, 2019) Copy Citation 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. 13/990,980 05/31/2013 Justus Dahlén 0837-0325PUS1 1501 127226 7590 09/09/2019 BIRCH, STEWART, KOLASCH & BIRCH, LLP 8110 Gatehouse Road Suite 100 East Falls Church, VA 22042-1248 EXAMINER SCHWENNING, LYNN E ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3652 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/09/2019 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): mailroom@bskb.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte JUSTUS DAHLÉN and HANNU LINDFORS1 ___________ Appeal 2018-000525 Application 13/990,980 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before STEFAN STAICOVICI, MEREDITH C. PETRAVICK, and LYNNE H. BROWNE, Administrative Patent Judges. PETRAVICK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 The real party in interest is KONECRANES GLOBAL CORPORATION. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2018-000525 Application 13/990,980 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Justus Dahlén and Hannu Lindfors (collectively, Appellant) seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the final rejection of claims 1–15. Claim 16 has been canceled. An oral hearing was held on August 20, 2019. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). SUMMARY OF DECISION2 We REVERSE. THE INVENTION Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter on appeal. 1. A method for positioning a load and fetching a positioned load or stacking loads with a crane having location measurement arranged thereto, the method comprising: taking a load to a selected position; detecting the unloading of the load by detecting detachment of the load; storing the required coordinate information of the position of the load in a memory of the crane or its control; when fetching a positioned load or adding loads to a stack, activating, at a first time instant, by pressing a positioning switch, 2 Our decision will make reference to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed Apr. 27, 2017), the Appellant’s Reply Brief (“Reply Br.” filed Oct. 23, 2017), the Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed Nov. 29, 2016), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Aug. 24, 2017). Appeal 2018-000525 Application 13/990,980 3 which is a pressable switch, arranged in the crane and connected to the memory, whereby the coordinates of the positioned load or a stack most advantageously located relative to the movement of the crane are selected from the memory, after which the crane begins to move to these coordinates; and then lifting or lowering the load at the selected coordinates, and deleting, at a second time instant, from the memory previous coordinate information associated with the lifted load. THE EVIDENCE The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of unpatentability: Burk Zakula Jung US 4,796,209 US 7,344,037 B1 US 7,547,173 B2 Jan. 3, 1989 Mar. 18, 2008 Jun. 16, 2009 Dahlén3 Schneider US 8,977,384 B2 US 2011/0062104 A1 Mar. 10, 2015 Mar. 17, 2011 THE REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected the claims as follows: claims 1–3, 5–12, 14, and 15 as unpatenable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Zakula, Jung, and Burk; 3 Like the Examiner we refer to this reference as “Dahlen.” See Final Act. 11. Appeal 2018-000525 Application 13/990,980 4 claims 4 and 13 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Zakula, Jung, Burk4, and Schneider; claims 1–3, 5–12, 14, and 15 as unpatentable on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting over claim 1 of Dahlen, Zakula, and Burk; and claims 4 and 13 as unpatentable on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting over claim 1 of Dahlen, Zakula, Burk, and Schneider. ANALYSIS Claims 1–3, 5–12, 14, and 15 as unpatentable over Zakula, Jung, and Burk The Appellant disputes whether the combination of Zakula and Jung5 teaches “when fetching a positioned load or adding loads to a stack, . . . whereby the coordinates of the positioned load or a stack most advantageously located relative to the movement of the crane are selected from the memory, after which the crane begins to move to these coordinates” as recited by claim 1 (App. Br., Claim Appendix) (emphasis added). See App. Br. 5–6; Ans. 6–7; Reply Br. 1–2; see also Final Act. 5–6. The Examiner relies upon Zakula to teach “lifting and lowering the load at the selected coordinates” but states that “Zakula fails to teach selecting the most advantageously located coordinates of a load or stack.” Final Act. 5. The Examiner applies Jung to teach that “the coordinates of a 4 The omission of Burk in the statement of the grounds in the rejection is considered a typographical error. See Final Act. 9; Ans. 11; Appeal Br. 8. 5 The Examiner does not rely upon Burk to teach this limitation. See Ans. 5 (“Burk was included in the 35 U.S.C. 103(a) rejection for the sole purpose of teaching a step that involved pressing a ‘pressable positioning switch’”), 7–8 (“the rejection relies on Burk for the sole reason of teaching the claimed ‘pressable switch’”). Appeal 2018-000525 Application 13/990,980 5 load or a stack most advantageously located relative to the movement of the load moving device (32) are selected from the memory.” Id. at 5–6 (citing Jung Fig.1, step S5, 12:14–67, 16:43–51); see also Ans. 6–7 (citing Jung 13:14–20). The Examiner concludes: It would have been obvious . . . to modify Zakula’s crane similarly to Jung’s load moving devices (32) so that Zakula’s crane is moved based on the most advantageously located load or stack relative to the crane (i.e., the closest load that is reach quickly or with the least energy consumption of the load moving device) because it would provide an efficient way of moving the load quickly, smoothly and stably, as taught by Jung (C2, L14 – C3, L25). Final Act. 6. Appellant disagrees because, contrary to the Examiner’s finding, Jung does not teach selecting coordinates of the positioned load or a stack most advantageously located relative to the movement of the crane from the memory. App. Br. 5–6; Reply Br. 1–2. We agree with Appellant. Jung’s Figure 1 and disclosures cited by the Examiner relate to a method of unloading containers from a ship to a position on a stacking unit. See e.g., Jung 11:28–41. The method includes “a stacking position-selecting step (S4) for selecting a position on a stacking unit where the containers are to be stacked.” Id. at 11:35–37. In this step, a central controlling unit selects the position on the stacking unit based on container information, such as container length or time of removal. Id. at 12:45–62, 13:38–47, 16:39–57. Jung does not disclose the central controlling unit selecting the position by selecting the coordinates of a load or a stack most advantageously located relative to the movement of the load moving device. Appeal 2018-000525 Application 13/990,980 6 The cited method of Jung also includes “[a] shortest route-selecting step (S5).” See e.g., Jung 12:14–21. In this step, the central controlling unit selects the shortest route between the stacking position and the loading/unloading unit. Id. 11:35–39; 12:14–19. Selecting the shortest route is not the same as selecting the position by selecting the coordinates of a load or a stack most advantageously located relative to the movement of the load moving device. Additionally, we note that Jung also discloses a method of loading a container from a stacked position onto the container ship. Id. at 13:58–14:3, Fig. 4. The method includes a “container position-identifying step (S20)” in which the central controlling unit supplies the position of the container in the stacking unit. Id. at 14:15–18. This also does not disclose the central controlling unit selecting the position by selecting the coordinates of a load or a stack most advantageously located relative to the movement of the load moving device. See id. Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1. For the same reason, we also do not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 2, 3, 5–12, 14, and 15. Cf. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (“dependent claims are nonobvious if the independent claims from which they depend are nonobvious”). Claims 4 and 13 as unpatentable over Zakula, Jung, Burk, and Schneider Claims 4 and 13 depend directly or indirectly from claim 1. For the same reason discussed above with respect to claim 1, we also do not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 4 and 13. Cf. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d at Appeal 2018-000525 Application 13/990,980 7 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992). The additional cited reference, Schneider, does not cure the deficiency discussed above. Claims 1–3, 5–12, 14, and 15 as unpatentable on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting over claim 1 of Dahlen, Zakula, and Burk and claims 4 and 13 as unpatentable on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting over claims 1 of Dahlen, Zakula, Burk, and Schneider Unlike the obviousness rejection, the nonstatutory double patenting rejections do not include Jung to teach claim 1’s limitation that “the coordinates of the positioned load or a stack most advantageously located relative to the movement of the crane are selected from the memory.” See Final Act. 11–12; see also Ans. 11. Dahlen’s claim 1 does not include a similar limitation (see Dahlen 3:22–4:30), the Examiner states that “Zakula fails to teach selecting the most advantageously located coordinates of a load or stack” (Final Act. 5), and the Examiner also does not rely upon Burk to teach this limitation (see id. at 5, 7–8, 11–12). The nonstatutory double patenting rejections, thus, do not explicitly address this limitation. Id. at 11– 12. Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1 for failing to make out a prima facie showing in the first instance. For the same reason, we also do not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 2, 3, 5–12, 14, and 15. Cf. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d at1266. The addition of Schneider for the rejection of claims 4 and 13 does not cure the deficiency discussed above. Appeal 2018-000525 Application 13/990,980 8 DECISION We do not sustain the following rejections: claims 1–3, 5–12, 14, and 15 as unpatenable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Zakula, Jung, and Burk; claims 4 and 13 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Zakula, Jung, Burk, and Schneider; claims 1–3, 5–12, 14, and 15 as unpatentable on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting over claim 1 of Dahlen, Zakula, and Burk; and claims 4 and 13 as unpatentable on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting over claim 1 of Dahlen, Zakula, Burk, and Schneider. REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation