HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Oct 22, 2020

2020000342 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 22, 2020)

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.
15/237,834 08/16/2016 Yufei Xiong H0054785 (002.4786) 2521
89955 7590 10/22/2020
HONEYWELL/LKGLOBAL
Intellectual Property Services Group
300 S. Tryon Street
Suite 600
Charlotte, NC 28202
EXAMINER
GRAVES, TIMOTHY P
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2856
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/22/2020 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):
DL-PMT-SM-IP@Honeywell.com
honeywell@lkglobal.com
patentservices-us@honeywell.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte YUFEI XIONG, RONNIE HAUGLAND, and SCOT COFFEY
____________

Appeal 2020-000342
Application 15/237,834
Technology Center 2800
____________

Before KAREN M. HASTINGS, N. WHITNEY WILSON, and
WESLEY B. DERRICK, Administrative Patent Judges.

PER CURIAM

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appellant1 seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1–4 and 11–14 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Rowe (US 2013/0319092,
published December 5, 2013), and claims 8 and 18 as unpatentable over the

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to the “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies Honeywell International, Inc. as the
real party in interest (Appeal Br. 2).

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Application 15/237,834

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combined prior art of Rowe and Larkin (US 5,303,545, issued April 19,
1994).2 We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter (emphasis added
to highlight key disputed limitations):

1. A method for detecting a shaft break in a turbofan gas
turbine engine, the turbofan engine including at least a fan and a
turbine, the method comprising the steps of:
sensing fan rotational speed;
sensing turbine engine rotational speed;
determining, in a processor, a rate of change of
rotational speed difference between the sensed fan rotational
speed and the sensed turbine engine rotational speed; and
determining, in the processor, that a shaft break has
occurred based at least in part on the rate of change of the
rotational speed difference.

Appeal Br. 15 (Claims Appendix).

Independent claim 11 is directed to a system which requires a
processor configured to “determine a rate of change of rotational speed
difference between the sensed fan rotational speed and the sensed turbine
engine rotational speed” (Appeal Br. Claims Appendix 18, 19).

2 The Examiner withdrew the rejection of claims 1–20 under 35 U.S.C. §101
(Ans. 3). The Examiner indicated that claims 5–7, 9, 10, 15–17, 19, and 20
would be “allowable subject matter” (Ans. 17).

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ANALYSIS
The Examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case
of obviousness. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
“[R]ejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by mere
conclusory statements; instead, there must be some articulated reasoning
with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness.” In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006), quoted with
approval in KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007).
After review of the respective positions provided by Appellant and the
Examiner, we conclude that the preponderance of the evidence supports
Appellant’s position that the Examiner has not met the burden in this case
for substantially the reasons set forth by Appellant in the Briefs.
Accordingly, we reverse the Examiner’s § 103 rejections of all the claims on
appeal.
We add the following primarily for emphasis.
This appeal hinges on whether Rowe renders obvious a method or
system that determines “a rate of change of rotational speed difference in
combination between the sensed fan rotational speed and the sensed turbine
engine rotational speed” as recited in claims 1 and 11. The Examiner relies
in part upon an embodiment in Rowe that calculates a rate of change of
rotational speed of the engine shaft and calculating the difference in
rotational speed between two shafts, stating:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to
incorporate Rowe's alternative embodiment scheme of basing a
shaft break indication on a change in the difference between
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shaft speeds with Rowe's first embodiment measuring the
speeds at a fan and turbine to determine a shaft break. Doing so
would reliably distinguish shaft break from surge or other
engine events that require different control response so that the
engine is not erroneously shut down.

(Final Act. 11)

Appellant contends that Rowe does not disclose the feature as claimed
and that the Examiner has taken an unreasonably broad interpretation of the
claim language (Appeal Br. 10, 11; Reply Br. 5). Appellant points out that
calculating the rate of change of rotational speed as is not the same as
calculating a rate of change of rotational speed difference, nor is calculating
a change in expected difference in rotational speeds “remotely suggestive of
calculating a rate of change of rotational speed difference” (Appeal Br. 11;
Reply Br. 5).
While we appreciate the Examiner’s position that Rowe describes a
shaft break detection system based on rotational speed difference using data
collected over time (e.g., Ans. 4, Rowe ¶ 48), it does not follow that what is
disclosed amounts to determining the difference in the rotational speed of
the fan and turbine as a function of time, that is, calculating “the rate of
change in rotational speed difference” as claimed. The detection of
rotational speed differences reaching a predetermined threshold is simply not
the same as calculating the rate of change in rotational speed difference,
even if the system to detect those differences operates over a period of time.
“[D]uring examination proceedings, claims are given their broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification.” In re Translogic
Tech., Inc., 504 F.3d 1249, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (quoting In re Hyatt, 211
F.3d 1367, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2000)).
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As stated in In re Smith,
The correct inquiry in giving a claim term its broadest
reasonable interpretation in light of the specification is not
whether the specification proscribes or precludes some broad
reading of the claim term adopted by the examiner. And it is
not simply an interpretation that is not inconsistent with the
specification. It is an interpretation that corresponds with what
and how the inventor describes his invention in the
specification, i.e., an interpretation that is “consistent with the
specification.”
In re Smith Int’l, Inc., 871 F.3d 1375, 1382–83 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (quoting In
re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997)). Cf. Phillips v. AWH
Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“[T]he specification ‘is always
highly relevant to the claim construction analysis. Usually, it is dispositive;
it is the single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term.’” (internal
citation omitted)).
Appellant’s Specification consistently describes determining the rate
of change of the rotational speed difference between the fan rotational speed
and the turbine rotational speed (e.g., Spec. ¶¶ 21, 32, 34, 36). We agree
with Appellant that the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim
language consistent with the Specification does not encompass merely
calculating the rate of change of rotational speed of the fan and/or turbine or
a change in expected difference in rotational speeds as proposed by the
Examiner (see also, Final Act. 10, where the Examiner relies in part upon
Rowe ¶ 6; Final Act. 11).
A preponderance of the evidence also supports Appellant’s position
that the proposed combination of the two embodiments described in Rowe
relied upon by the Examiner to result in the claimed method (or
corresponding system of claim 11) would be based on improper hindsight
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reconstruction for the reasons discussed by Appellant in the Briefs. The fact
finder must be aware “of the distortion caused by hindsight bias and must be
cautious of arguments reliant upon ex post reasoning.” KSR, 550 U.S. at 421
(citing Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 36 (1966) (warning against a
“temptation to read into the prior art the teachings of the invention in
issue”)).
The Examiner does not rely upon any other reference (e.g., Larkin) to
cure these deficiencies.
Accordingly, we reverse the § 103 rejections of claims 1–4, 8, 11–14,
and 18.

CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–4, 11–14 103 Rowe 1–4, 11–14
8, 18 103 Rowe, Larkin 8, 18
Overall
Outcome
1–4, 8, 11–14, 18

REVERSED