Stefan Wessling et al.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 15, 20212020002590 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 15, 2021) 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. 14/031,877 09/19/2013 Stefan Wessling DDE4-54601- US(INT0498US2) 6074 44639 7590 03/15/2021 CANTOR COLBURN LLP-BAKER HUGHES, A GE COMPANY, LLC 20 Church Street 22nd Floor Hartford, CT 06103 EXAMINER HAGOS, EYOB ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2864 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/15/2021 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): usptopatentmail@cantorcolburn.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte STEFAN WESSLING, ANNE BARTETZKO, and PHILIPP TESCH Appeal 2020-002590 Application 14/031,877 Technology Center 2800 Before JAMES R. HUGHES, CARL L. SILVERMAN, and SCOTT B. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judges. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–14 and 17–25. See Final Act. 1. Claims 15 and 16 have been objected to. Id. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM IN PART. 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 the assignee, Baker Hughes, a GE company, LLC. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2020-002590 Application 14/031,877 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to a method to predict overpressure uncertainty from normal compaction trendline uncertainty. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for predicting a pressure window for drilling a borehole in a formation, the method comprising: obtaining pore pressure related data values of the formation using a data acquisition tool; identifying at least two sets of pore pressure related data values, the at least two sets of pore pressure related data values each comprising at least two pore pressure related data values, the two sets of pore pressure related data values being different in at least one pore pressure related data value using a processor; defining at least two trendlines through the at least two sets of pore pressure related data values using a processor, wherein each of the at least two trendlines spans a same depth interval of interest and one of the at least two trendlines has a slope that is different from the slope of another of the at least two trendlines; predicting pore pressure uncertainty from the at least two trendlines using a processor; estimating uncertainty of a pressure window for drilling fluid using the predicted pore pressure uncertainty using a processor; applying the estimated uncertainty to the pressure window to provide a modified pressure window using a processor; and drilling into the formation using a drilling tool and the modified pressure window for the drilling fluid. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Weakley US 5,128,866 July 7, 1992 Leuchtenberg US 2002/0112888 A1 Aug. 22, 2002 Malinverno ’486 US 6,826,486 B1 Nov. 30, 2004 Appeal 2020-002590 Application 14/031,877 3 Alberto Malinverno et al., Integrating Diverse Measurements to Predict Pore Pressure with Uncertainties While Drilling, SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Inc., 1–11, (Sept. 26–29, 2004) (“Malinverno”). REJECTIONS Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis 1–9, 11–14, 17 103 Leuchtenberg, Malinverno ’486, Weakley 10 103 Leuchtenberg, Malinverno ’486, Weakley, Malinverno 18–25 103 Leuchtenberg, Malinverno ’486 OPINION We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner erred. In reaching this decision, we have considered all evidence presented and all arguments made by Appellant. We are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–14 and 17. However, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 18–25. Claims 18–25 Appellant does not address the Examiner’s rejection of claims 18–25. “If an appellant fails to present arguments on a particular issue—or, more broadly, on a particular rejection—the Board will not, as a general matter, unilaterally review those uncontested aspects of the rejection.” Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). Accordingly, we summarily affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 18–25. Appeal 2020-002590 Application 14/031,877 4 Claims 1–14 and 17 Claim 1 recites, inter alia, “defining at least two trendlines through the at least two sets of pore pressure related data values using a processor, wherein each of the at least two trendlines spans a same depth interval of interest and one of the at least two trendlines has a slope that is different from the slope of another of the at least two trendlines.” Appeal Br. 9 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). Claim 1 further recites that “the at least two sets of pore pressure related data values each compris[e] at least two pore pressure related data values.” Id. The Examiner finds Weakley teaches the defining step recited above. Final Act. 13–14; Ans. 8–10. Specifically, the Examiner finds that although “Weakley may not explicitly discloses trendlines span the same depth interval,” it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have “at least two trendlines [spanning] the same depth interval.” Final Act. 14 (citing Weakley 4:1–4, Figs. 9, 34, and 52); accord Ans. 10 (“Weakley may not explicitly discloses trendlines span the same depth interval. . . . [H]aving at least two trendlines span the same depth interval would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art based on the teaching of Weakly.”). Appellant argues that although Weakley teaches multiple trendlines, each of those trendlines “cover a selected depth interval and not spanning the same depth interval.” Appeal Br. 6. For example, Appellant points to Figure 33 which illustrates a series of trendlines in series. Id. (citing Weakley 16:56–58). Appellant further argues that Figure 52 illustrates an Interval Transit Time curve and not a trendline. Reply Br. 4. Appellant also argues that the Appeal 2020-002590 Application 14/031,877 5 various parallel normal trendlines relate “to various pore pressures [and] are drawn where one of those trend lines that most closely matches the ITT can be selected for predicting pore pressure.” Id. We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner erred. Although Weakley teaches multiple trendlines (see Weakley 3:67–4:6), the Examiner does not demonstrate that those multiple trendlines “spans a same depth interval of interest” as recited in claim 1. Instead, for example, as shown in Figure 33, each of the trendlines show a different depth interval. See Weakley Fig. 32, 16:55–58. This is consistent with the Examiner’s finding that Weakley does not teach multiple trendlines spanning the same depth interval. See Final Act. 14; Ans. 10. We are also not persuaded that the Examiner has sufficiently shown that it would have been obvious to have multiple trendlines spanning the same depth interval of interest. See Final Act. 14; Ans. 10. None of the sections cited by the Examiner sufficiently demonstrate why a person having ordinary skill would have modified the trendlines so that multiple trendlines span the same depth interval of interest. For example, although column 1, lines 8–17 (cited by the Examiner) discusses predicting pore pressure over known depth intervals, the Examiner does not provide any explanation why that would motivate a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Weakley to use multiple trendlines spanning the same depth interval of interest. The Examiner’s additional citations are similarly lacking any explanation as to why they would have motivated a person having ordinary skill in the art is not apparent. Moreover, to the extent that the Examiner pointed to parallel trendlines (see, e.g., Weakley 14:61–67, Fig. 23), the Examiner has not Appeal 2020-002590 Application 14/031,877 6 sufficiently explained why those trendlines have different slopes. Additionally, the Examiner has not offered sufficient evidence to support a finding that those multiple, parallel trendlines are “through the at least two sets of pore pressure related data values” as recited in claim 1; rather, at most, the Figure has only a single pore pressure related data value. See Weakley 14:61–65. Because the Examiner’s findings are not supported by a preponderance of the evidence, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner erred. See In re Caveney, 761 F.2d 671, 674 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (Examiner’s burden of proving non-patentability is by a preponderance of the evidence); see also In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967) (“The Patent Office has the initial duty of supplying the factual basis for its rejection. It may not, because it may doubt that the invention is patentable, resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in its factual basis.”). Accordingly, we are constrained on this record to reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, along with the rejections of dependent claims 2–9, 11–14 and 17. Moreover, because the Examiner has not shown that Malinverno cures the foregoing deficiencies regarding the rejection of the independent claims, we do not sustain the obviousness rejection of dependent claim 10 for the same reason. CONCLUSION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–14 and 17 is reversed. The Examiner’s rejection of claims 18–25 is affirmed. Appeal 2020-002590 Application 14/031,877 7 DECISION SUMMARY Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–9, 11–14, 17 103 Leuchtenberg, Malinverno ’486, bnWeakley 1–9, 11– 14, 17 10 103 Leuchtenberg, Malinverno ’486, Weakley, Malinverno 10 18–25 103 Leuchtenberg, Malinverno ’486 18–25 Overall Outcome 18–25 1–14, 17 TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED IN PART Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation