Ex Parte Haq et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 28, 201714358783 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 28, 2017) 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. 14/358,783 05/16/2014 Sajad Haq BAE.XA3681US 9960 121361 7590 10/02/2017 RAF-TTK /FinrTi & Malnne.v EXAMINER Gateway One 50 Commercial, Suite 300 ABDOSH, SAMIR Manchester, NH 03101 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3641 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/02/2017 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): docketing @ finchmaloney .com nmaloney @ finchmaloney .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SAJAD HAQ and CAROLINE JOLEEN MORLEY Appeal 2016-008294 Application 14/358,783 Technology Center 3600 Before CHARLES N. GREENHUT, MICHAEL L. HOELTER, and ANNETTE R. REIMERS, Administrative Patent Judges. REIMERS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2016-008294 Application 14/358,783 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 3—5, 7—20, 25, and 26. App. Br. 2. Claims 1, 2, 6, and 21—24 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. THE CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to a fibrous armor material. Spec. 1. Sole independent claim 3, reproduced below, is representative of the claimed subject matter: 3. A fibrous armour material for dissipating the kinetic energy of a moving object, said fibrous armour material being impregnated with a shear thickening fluid, in which the shear thickening fluid includes particles of a thickening agent suspended in a liquid, and the volume fraction of the thickening agent in the shear thickening fluid is selected to be in the range 47 to 50% so that the shear thickening fluid has at least one of: a viscosity of 0.11 to 0.21 PaS at a shear stress of 200 Pa, a viscosity of 0.13 to 0.27 PaS at a shear stress of 400 Pa, a viscosity of 0.14 to 0.37 PaS at a shear stress of 600 Pa, and a viscosity of 0.16 to 0.45 PaS at a shear stress of 800 Pa. 2 Appeal 2016-008294 Application 14/358,783 REFERENCE Wagner US 7,498,276 B2 Mar. 3,2009 REJECTION Claims 3—5, 7—20, 25, and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Wagner. Non—Final Act. 2. ANALYSIS The Examiner finds that Wagner teaches all the limitations of independent claim 3 except for those limitations directed to the volume fraction of a thickening agent in the shear thickening fluid used to impregnate the fibrous armor material. Non-Final Act. 2—3. The Examiner further finds, however, that the volume fraction of thickening agent in the shear thickening fluid is a “result-effective variable,” and that “adjusting a result-effective variable in order to obtain an optimized range of values is considered to be an obvious variant capable of being achieved by a person of ordinary skill in the art.” Id. at 4. In response to Appellants’ assertion that the thickening-agent volume fraction is not a result-effective variable, the Examiner asserts that “the Wagner patent teaches varying the volume fraction of silica from 57% to 52% between the two examples disclosed in the reference.” Ans. 6 (citing Wagner, 1:33—35, 10:55—57). According to the Examiner, “[experimenting with a plurality of volume fractions to obtain a particular result for a particular scenario (improving penetration depth at high impact velocities with respect to an undisclosed projectile) is not an inventive step.” Id. In this case, the record does not adequately support the Examiner’s finding that the volume fraction of thickening agent in the shear thickening 3 Appeal 2016-008294 Application 14/358,783 fluid used to impregnate fibrous armor is a result-effective variable. Normally, “where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation.” In re Applied Materials, Inc., 692 F.3d 1289, 1295 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). But this rule “is limited to cases in which the optimized variable is a result-effective variable.” Id. (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). “A recognition in the prior art that a property is affected by the variable is sufficient to find the variable result-effective.” Id. at 1297. Here, the Examiner asserts that Wagner demonstrates that the thickening-agent volume fraction is a result-effective variable because Wagner “var[ied] the volume fraction of silica from 57% to 52% between the two examples.” Ans. 6. But Wagner does not explain why different volume fractions were used for the two tests. Nor can one reasonably infer from Wagner’s use of two different volume fractions that performance of the fabric is affected by changing the volume fraction, or that Wagner was even testing the performance effects of different volume fractions. As Appellants note (see App. Br. 4; Reply Br. 2—3), the two examples on which the Examiner relies measure different things: the first test, which used the 57% volume fraction, tested ballistic performance of STF-impregnated Kevlar fabric. Wagner, 5:18—6:32. The second test, which used the 52% volume fraction, tested slab performance, the ability to withstand “puncturing threat[s].” Id. at 10:52—11:8. If Wagner had wanted to measure the effect on performance of different volume fractions, the volume fraction would have been varied on the same kind of test. Indeed, that is how Wagner 4 Appeal 2016-008294 Application 14/358,783 tested the effects of other variables, such as STF volume and type. See Wagner, 8:28-55, 10:1^8. Because we are not persuaded that it was known in the prior art that the thickening-agent volume fraction is a result-effective variable, we do not sustain this rejection. DECISION For the above reasons, we REVERSE the Examiner’s decision to reject of claims 3—5, 7—20, 25, and 26. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation