Harrison, Michael J.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardDec 13, 201915001582 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Dec. 13, 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. 15/001,582 01/20/2016 Michael J. Harrison EE175 3712 54698 7590 12/13/2019 MOSER TABOADA 1030 BROAD STREET SUITE 203 SHREWSBURY, NJ 07702 EXAMINER RETEBO, METASEBIA T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2842 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/13/2019 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): docketing@mtiplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte MICHAEL J. HARRISON Appeal 2019-002182 Application 15/001,582 Technology Center 2800 ____________ Before JEFFREY T. SMITH, JEFFREY W. ABRAHAM, and MICHAEL G. McMANUS, Administrative Patent Judges. McMANUS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 seeks review of the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–7, 9–15, and 17–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Enphase Energy, Inc. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2019-002182 Application 15/001,582 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The present application generally relates to an apparatus and system for powering an isolated gate driver. Spec. ¶ 6. Claim 1 is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal and is reproduced below: 1. An apparatus for powering a power converter isolated gate driver, comprising: a gate driver power supply unit (PSU), coupled to a transistor and to an isolated gate driver that couples control signals to the transistor, for (i) harnessing energy from commutation action across the transistor, and (ii) using the harnessed energy to power the isolated gate driver. Appeal Br. 12 (Claims App’x). REFERENCES The Examiner relies upon the following prior art: Name Reference Date Sankman et al. (“Sankman”) US 2004/0125623 Al July 1, 2004 Jahkonen US 2004/0207359 Al Oct. 21, 2004 Yeh US 2009/0315393 Al Dec. 24, 2009 Fang et al. (“Fang”) US 2014/0049175 Al Feb. 20, 2014 Zolnhofer US 2015/0253792 Al Sept. 10, 2015 Richardson et al. (“Richardson”) US 2016/0142049 Al May 19, 2016 Appeal 2019-002182 Application 15/001,582 3 REJECTIONS The Examiner maintains the following rejections: 1. Claims 1–3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Richardson in view of Fang and further in view of Jahkonen. Final Act. 2–4. 2. Claims 4 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Richardson in view of Fang and further in view of Jahkonen and Sankman. Id. at 4. 3. Claims 6 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Richardson in view of Fang and further in view of Jahkonen and Zolnhofer. Id. at 4–5. 4. Claims 17, 18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Richardson in view of Fang and further in view of Jahkonen and Yeh. Id. at 5. DISCUSSION Rejection 1. The Examiner rejects claims 1–3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, and 19 as obvious over Richardson in view of Fang and Jahkonen. Final Act. 2–4. Claims 2, 3, 5, and 7 depend from independent claim 1 while claims 10, 11, 13, 15, and 19 depend from independent claim 9. Appellant presents argument limited to independent claims 1 and 9. Appeal Br. 6–7. Accordingly, the rejection of dependent claims 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, and 19 will stand or fall with underlying independent claims 1 and 9. In support of the rejection, the Examiner finds that Richardson discloses an apparatus for powering an isolated gate driver comprising a gate Appeal 2019-002182 Application 15/001,582 4 driver power supply unit and an isolated gate driver but does not teach the details of the power supply unit. Final Act. 2. The Examiner additionally finds that Fang teaches a power supply circuit that includes a charge pump and a linear voltage regulator coupled to bridge diodes. Id. Fang teaches that “[t]he invention relates to a PFC converter and more particularly to an internal power supply circuit for buck- boost power factor correction (PFC) converter.” Fang ¶ 2. The Examiner determines that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have had reason to modify the power supply of Richardson by incorporating the charge pump and linear voltage regulator of Fang “for the purpose of reducing the ripple voltage to allow the voltage after the linear voltage rectifier to be linear to DC bus voltage at steady state.” Final Act. 2–3. The Examiner additionally finds that Jahkonen discloses that it would have been known to implement a rectifier using diode bridges. Id. at 3; see also Jahkonen ¶ 4. Jahkonen teaches that “[b]oth the rectifier 21 and the inverter 22 are generally implemented using semiconductor switches.” Jahkonen ¶ 5. The Examiner determines that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill “to have provided a rectifier with transistors in place of bridge diode (21-24), because such an obvious modification would have been the mere substitution of known art recognized alternative rectifier chosen as necessary by those of ordinary skill in the art as suggested by the exemplary teaching of Jahkonen.” Final Act. 3. Accordingly, the Examiner determines that the apparatus of claim 1 would have been obvious. Appellant argues that the rejection is in error on several bases. Appeal 2019-002182 Application 15/001,582 5 First, Appellant argues that the Final Action was improperly issued because the Examiner did not respond to the substance of Appellant’s arguments presented in the response filed to the December 2017 final rejection. Appeal Br. 5–6. That is, Appellant argues that the Examiner has not followed proper procedure. Id. If an Examiner has procedurally erred, the remedy lies exclusively in petitioning the Director for supervisory review. 37 C.F.R. § 1.181; cf. 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (giving substantive review powers directly to the Board). The Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, not the Board, supervises examination and Examiners. 35 U.S.C. §§ 3(a)(2)(A), 132(a). Second, Appellant argues that the Examiner has not shown an adequate reason why a person of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the teachings of Richardson and Fang. Appeal Br. 6–7. Appellant argues as follows: Appellants respectfully submit that there is no reason why one skilled in the art would be motivated to make such a modification. Fang discloses that a major limitation of buck- boost PFC converter internal power supply circuits consisting of an auxiliary winding of the PFC inductor, a charge pump circuit and a linear voltage regulator is that the voltage after the charge pump includes a high ripple voltage with a frequency of double main input frequency. (Fang, paragraph [0007]) A consequence of this high ripple voltage is that it causes the linear voltage regulator to have a high power loss and thus to be less cost effective. (Id.) Fang further discloses that to avoid such PFC circuit limitation, an internal power supply circuit for the buck- boost PFC converter is needed that eliminates or reduces the ripple voltage to allow the voltage after the linear voltage rectifier to be linear to DC bus voltage (output of the buck-boost PFC converter) at steady state, and that a smaller or eliminated voltage ripple will improve the power loss factor in linear voltage Appeal 2019-002182 Application 15/001,582 6 regulator and allow the buck-boost PFC converter to be more cost effective. (Fang, paragraph [0008]). None of these issues disclosed by Fang are applicable to Richardson. Appeal Br. 7 (emphasis added). Appellant further argues that Fang teaches an internal power supply that includes an auxiliary winding of a PFC inductor, a charge pump circuit and a linear voltage regulator and that “Richardson fails to disclose any of these components or circuits, or any AC input resulting in a ripple voltage.” Id. Similarly, in its Reply Brief, Appellant argues as follows: Fang discloses a high ripple voltage that results from a particular circuit configuration which does not apply to Richardson. Further, Richardson is silent with respect to any ripple voltage even being present. If the circuit configuration that generates ripple voltage is missing from Richardson, and if Richardson is silent with respect to any ripple voltage, there is simply no reason one skilled in the art would seek to modify Richardson to reduce ripple voltage. Reply Br. 2. Richardson teaches that “a need exists for an improved power supply circuit to deliver isolated and/or electrically floating supply voltages to load driving circuits.” Richardson ¶ 4. An Examiner must provide more than conclusory statements to support an obviousness argument: “there must be some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)). Here, the Examiner posits that one of skill in the art would incorporate the charge pump and linear regulator of Fang into the power supply of Richardson “for the purpose of Appeal 2019-002182 Application 15/001,582 7 reducing the ripple voltage.” Final Act. 2. The Examiner, however, has not shown that the power supply of Richardson gives rise to a ripple voltage. Nor has the Examiner shown that the components proposed to be incorporated by Fang would have been compatible with Richardson’s stated need “for an improved power supply circuit to deliver isolated and/or electrically floating supply voltages to load driving circuits.” Richardson ¶ 4. Absent such a showing, the Examiner has not provided sufficient “articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning” to support the proposed reason to combine the teachings of Richardson and Fang. Accordingly, we determine that Appellant has shown error in the rejection of independent claims 1 and 9. As the Examiner relies upon the same reasoning in rejecting dependent claims 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, and 19 (Final Act. 3–4), we similarly determine that Appellant has shown error in the rejection of those claims. Rejections 2–4. The Examiner rejects claims 4, 6, 12, 14, 17, 18, and 20 as obvious over Richardson, Fang, and certain other references. Final Act. 4–5. Each of these rejections relies upon the same rationale in support of the determination that one of ordinary skill in the art would have had reason to combine the teachings of Richardson and Fang. Id. As we have determined such finding to be unsupported, we reverse these rejections. Appeal 2019-002182 Application 15/001,582 8 CONCLUSION The Examiner’s rejections are reversed. In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 19 103 Richardson, Fang, Jahkonen 1–3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 19 4, 12 103 Richardson, Fang, Jahkonen, Sankman 4, 12 6, 14 103 Richardson, Fang, Jahkonen, Zolnhofer 6, 14 17, 18, 20 103 Richardson, Fang, Jahkonen, Yeh 17, 18, 20 Overall Outcome 1–7, 9–15, 17–20 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation