UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATIONDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 4, 20202019005782 (P.T.A.B. May. 4, 2020) 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. 14/432,442 03/30/2015 Chris J. Niggemeier PA-0024261-US-AA 2684 11943 7590 05/04/2020 Getz Balich LLC 10 Waterside Drive, Suite 205 Farmington, CT 06032 EXAMINER KIM, CRAIG SANG ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3741 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/04/2020 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): shenry@getzbalich.com uspto@getzbalich.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHRIS J. NIGGEMEIER, KARL D. BLUME, JOHN H. MOSLEY, and ANDREAS SADIL Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 Technology Center 3700 Before JILL D. HILL, LEE L. STEPINA, and ARTHUR M. PESLAK, Administrative Patent Judges. STEPINA, 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 and 3–20. See Final Act. 1. 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 United Technologies Corp. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Appellant’s invention relates to inner diffuser case struts for a combustor of a gas turbine engine. Claims 1, 5, and 10 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. An inner diffuser case for use in a combustor of a gas turbine engine comprising: an outer shroud; an inner shroud; an annular flow path defined by and between the outer and inner shrouds; and a multiple of struts extending across the annular flow path, the multiple of struts including a multiple of open struts and a multiple of solid struts. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Rofka US 2009/0067984 A1 Mar. 12, 2009 Wong US 2010/0307165 A1 Dec. 09, 2010 Danis US 8,387,358 B2 Mar. 05, 2013 REJECTIONS I. Claim 1, 3, 5–10, and 12–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Danis and Wong. Final Act. 2. II. Claims 4 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Danis, Wong, and Rofka. Final Act. 6. Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 3 OPINION Rejection I –Danis and Wong Claims 1, 3, 5–10, 12–17 The Examiner finds that Danis discloses, inter alia, multiple struts including open struts, but is silent as to solid struts. Final Act. 2. The Examiner finds that Wong discloses a plurality of solid struts. Final Act. 3. According to the Examiner, because Danis only uses (supplies with steam) certain open struts, it would have been obvious to replace the unused open struts with I-beam solid struts, which, the Examiner finds, Wong teaches are “lighter and still provide comparable strength and stiffness.” Final Act. 3 (citing Wong ¶ 27). Appellant argues that Figure 5 of Danis, upon which the Examiner relies, depicts all open struts that are all intended to be used, i.e., fluidly coupled with steam cavity 52. Appeal Br. 8–9. Appellant asserts that “there is no teaching or suggestion in Danis that only three of its struts 12 need to be open struts as alleged in the Office Action.” Appeal Br. 9. Appellant also contends that a proper reading of Wong is that Wong’s struts require a fairing, and that there would have been no motivation to replace the strut 12 of Danis with only an I-beam strut rather than a strut and a fairing as taught by Wong. Appeal Br. 10. Appellant thus argues that replacing a strut of Danis with one from Wong would still result in the use of only hollow struts because the fairing/strut combination taught by Wong is hollow. Id. The Examiner responds that Danis teaches that not all struts are to be fluidly coupled, because “Danis specifically states that it is not often possible or feasible to evenly or uniformly distribute steam from the outer Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 4 supply header to all of the struts.” Ans. 7 (citing Danis, 5:30–47). As to the combination with Wong, the Examiner states that not all embodiments of Wong require fairings, and moreover, the rejection relies only on the teaching of a solid strut, not the combination of a strut and a fairing. Id. (citing Wong, Fig. 2.); see also Final Act. 2 (“Regardless of the use of the fairing or not, the strut itself is solid.”). In reply, Appellant argues that Figure 5 of Danis illustrates that each of struts 12 is open, and Danis discloses that each of the ten struts 12 depicted in Figure 5 is hollow. Reply Br. 2–4 (citing Danis, 5:39–40). Appellant asserts that even if Danis depicts steam in only three out of the ten struts, this does not suggest that the other struts need not be open. Reply Br. 4. As to Wong, Appellant asserts that because each strut 12 of Figure 4 of Wong includes a hollow fairing, there is no suggestion that a person of skill in the art would replace the strut 12 of Danis with only an I-beam strut of Wong without a fairing. Id. According to Appellant, because Wong teaches a strut assembly having a hollow fairing, Wong does not suggest a solid strut. Reply Br. 5. The Examiner has the better position. In the Figure 5 embodiment, Danis discloses that steam is supplied to “three out of the ten hollow struts 12” (Danis, 5:40), and this disclosure supports the Examiner’s finding (Final Act. 3) that Danis does not require all of its struts to be hollow. Further, Figure 5 relates to only one embodiment of Danis. Danis also explicitly states that “one or more of the struts 12 are hollow” (Danis, 4:3–4), which implies that not all struts in Danis are required to be hollow. A reference must be considered for everything that it teaches, not simply the described Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 5 invention or a preferred embodiment. In re Applied Materials, Inc., 692 F.3d 1289, 1298 (Fed. Cir. 2012). Contrary to Appellant’s assertion, Danis does not require that “all of its struts 12 need to be open.” Appeal Br. 9. As to Appellant’s argument that Wong’s Figure 4 uses a hollow fairing with a strut, Appellant appears to ignore that the Examiner finds that Figure 2 of Wong does not include a fairing. Specifically, Wong discloses that Figure 2 depicts strut assembly 114 having multiple (solid) struts 300 that exhibit an I-beam configuration. Wong ¶ 19; Ans. 7. We do not find persuasive Appellant’s argument that any replacement of Danis’s hollow strut with the strut of Wong would require that both Wong’s I-beam strut and fairing are used. Appellant does not contest the Examiner’s finding that an I-beam strut would be lighter and still provide comparable strength and stiffness. See Appeal Br. The Examiner’s finding of fact on this point does not rely on also modifying Danis to include a fairing. For these reasons, we are not apprised of error in the Examiner’s determination that it would have been obvious to replace ones of Danis’s open struts that are not being used for fluid communication with Wong’s I- beam solid struts. Appellant does not provide additional arguments directed to independent claims 5 and 10 (see Appeal Br. 13–14), and dependent claims 3, 6–9, and 12–17, and therefore those claims fall with claim 1. Claims 18 and 19 Claim 18 recites “a first of the multiple of open struts is arranged circumferentially between and adjacent to an adjacent pair of the multiple of solid struts.” Appeal Br. 18 (Claims App.). Claim 19 recites, in part, “the second of the multiple of solid struts is arranged circumferentially between Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 6 and adjacent to the first of the multiple of solid struts and a second of the multiple of open struts.” Id. at 19. In rejecting claims 18 and 19, the Examiner relies on explanatory Figures reproduced below. The Examiner’s explanatory Figures depict a schematic diffuser case having 10 struts with open struts shown by dashed lines and closed struts shown by solid lines. See Final Act. 4–5. The Examiner circles various ones of the struts to indicate which struts are relied on to meet the claim limitations. Id. Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 7 Appellant argues that the Examiner’s Figures depict the open strut adjacent to other open struts not adjacent to solid struts. Appeal Br. 11–13. The Examiner responds that “Merriam Webster defines adjacent as ‘not distant; nearby’.” Ans. 7. According to the Examiner, the struts in the Examiner’s Figures “can reasonably considered to be nearby to each other.” Id. Appellant replies that even if “nearby” is a reasonable definition of adjacent, a person of skill in the art would not consider the Examiner’s denoted solid struts to be nearby the open strut since the circled open and solid struts are separated from one another by at least another open strut. Reply Br. 5. Although we appreciate that in certain contexts, the term “adjacent” can mean “not distant or nearby,” the Examiner does not explain adequately why such an interpretation is the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification. “The correct inquiry in giving a claim term its broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the Specification ... 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 International, Inc., 871 F.3d 1375, 1382–1383 (Fed. Cir. 2017). Here, Appellant’s Specification depicts an embodiment of solid and open struts in Figure 4, reproduced below. Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 8 Figure 4 is a front view of the inner diffuser case. Spec. ¶ 17. In Figure 4, inner diffuser case 64-I has a multiple of open struts 102A and a multiple of solid struts 102B. Spec. ¶ 36. Each open strut 102A is between and next to a pair of solid struts 102B. Thus, consistent with the Specification, one of ordinary skill in the art would reasonably understand the term “adjacent” to mean next to. By contrast, under the Examiner’s definition, all struts disclosed by Appellant would be “nearby” other struts. For example, for the claim 19 limitation, “the second of the multiple of solid struts is arranged circumferentially between and adjacent to the first of the multiple of solid struts and a second of the multiple of open struts,” the Examiner finds that second solid strut C is adjacent to first solid strut A and Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 9 open strut D, with the Examiner apparently ignoring the unlabeled additional solid struts between C and D. See Ans. 5–6. Moreover, claims should not be construed so broadly as to vitiate an express claim limitation. See Warner-Jenkinson Co. v. Hilton Davis Chemical Co., 520 U.S. 17 (1997) (each element in a claim is material to defining the scope of the invention.). By the Examiner interpreting “adjacent” to allow all struts to be adjacent to each other, the Examiner is vitiating the term “adjacent.” For these reasons, the Examiner appears to be relying on an unreasonably broad interpretation of the term “adjacent.” The Examiner’s unreasonably broad claim interpretation led to the Examiner's incorrect finding that Danis and Wong disclose the claimed strut arrangement. Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 18 and 19. Claim 20 Claim 20 recites “wherein each of the multiple of struts comprises an exterior surface exposed to gas flowing through the annular flow path.” The Examiner finds that Danis’s Figure 3 depicts gas 89 in contact with the exterior of the struts in flow path 57. See Final Act. 6. Appellant argues that because Wong requires a fairing that covers the strut, the fairing and not the strut would be in contact with the gas. Appeal Br. 13. The Examine responds that only the strut is relied upon in the rejection of claim 20, consistent with the embodiment of Figure 2 of Wong, which, the Examiner finds, discloses struts without fairings. Ans. 8. Appellant replies that “there is no support for this contention.” Reply Br. 6. According to Appellant, Figure 4 of Wong requires a fairing for each I-beam strut. Id. Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 10 Appellant’s argument as to what Wong depicts in Figure 4 appears to ignore that the Examiner also relies on Figure 2 of Wong, which does not include a fairing. See Wong, Fig. 2; Ans. 8. We are not apprised of error in the Examiner’s finding that each of the struts is in contact with the gas flow. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 20. Rejection II– Danis, Wong, and Rofka Claims 4 and 11 depend from claims 1 and 10, respectively. Appellant does not provide additional arguments directed to claims 4 and 11 (see Appeal Br. 14), and therefore these claims fall with claims 1 and 10. CONCLUSION The Examiner’s rejections are affirmed as to claims 1, 3–17, and 20, and are reversed as to claims 18 and 19. More specifically, DECISION SUMMARY Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 3, 5–10, 12–20 103 Danis, Wong 1, 3, 5–10, 12–17, 20 18, 19 4, 11 103 Danis, Wong, Rofka 4, 11 Overall Outcome: 1, 3–17, 20 18, 19 Appeal 2019-005782 Application 14/432,442 11 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