11685822 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 26, 2013)

Ex Parte Anderson

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 26, 2013

11685822 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 26, 2013)

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. 11/685,822 03/14/2007 Eric R. Anderson 17516-US 5303 30689 7590 03/26/2013 DEERE & COMPANY ONE JOHN DEERE PLACE MOLINE, IL 61265 EXAMINER LOPEZ, FRANK D ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3745 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/26/2013 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte ERIC R. ANDERSON ____________________ Appeal 2011-000434 Application 11/685,822 Technology Center 3700 ____________________ Before: JAMES P. CALVE, NEIL T. POWELL, and JEREMY M. PLENZLER, Administrative Patent Judges. PLENZLER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-000434 Application 11/685,822 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134 of the Examinerâ€™s decision rejecting claims 1, 4-7, 9-12, 15, and 18-20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Inoue (US 6,912,849 B2; iss. Jul. 5, 2005), Scanderbeg (US 5,144,801; iss. Sep. 8, 1992), and Hoashi (US 4,549,466; iss. Oct. 29, 1985). Claims 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 16, and 17 have been cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We REVERSE. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Claims 1, 7, and 18 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A hydraulic circuit, comprising: a hydraulic cylinder comprising a head side and a rod side, an accumulator, and a bi-directional variable displacement hydraulic pump positioned fluidly between the head side and both of the rod side and the accumulator to manage flow therebetween, the pump comprising a piston unit rotatable about a piston unit axis, a swash plate associated with the piston unit and movable about a displacement axis to vary displacement of the pump, and a flow distributor configured to control the timing of distribution of flow between a piston of the piston unit and the head side, the rod side, and the accumulator during rotation of the piston unit about the piston unit axis achieving a torque balance on the swashplate about the displacement axis, the flow distributor comprising a distributor head port fluidly connected to the piston unit and the head side, first and second distributor rod ports Appeal 2011-000434 Application 11/685,822 3 fluidly connected to the piston unit and the rod side, and a distributor accumulator port fluidly connected to the piston unit and the accumulator, the distributor accumulator port is positioned between the first and second distributor rod ports, the distributor head port has a flow area substantially equal to a cumulative flow area of the distributor accumulator port and the first and second distributor rod ports, the distributor head port has substantially equal flow areas on opposite sides of the displacement axis, the distributor accumulator port has substantially equal flow areas on opposite sides of the displacement axis, and the first distributor rod port and the second distributor rod port are of substantially equal flow area and are positioned on opposite sides of the displacement axis and opposite sides of the distributor accumulator port. OPINION Claims 1 and 7 are directed to a hydraulic circuit including a variable displacement hydraulic pump and claim 18 is directed to a variable displacement hydraulic pump. The pump recited in each of claims 1, 7, and 18 includes a flow distributor defining a distributor head port, distributor rod ports, and a distributor accumulator port and the claims further define the relative locations of the ports on the flow distributor. The Examiner cites Inoue as teaching each of the features recited in claims 1, 7, and 18 except an accumulator and the port features discussed above. Ans. 3-4. The Examiner relies on Scanderbeg teaching the accumulator and Hoashi teaching the port features. Ans. 4. Appellant contends that it would not have been obvious to modify Inoue with an accumulator of Scanderberg or ports of Hoashi because Inoue Appeal 2011-000434 Application 11/685,822 4 discloses a port arrangement that does not utilize an accumulator and Hoashi teaches a port arrangement with two head side ports and a single head side port but does not include a port for an accumulator. App. Br. 6-8. We agree with Appellant that Hoashi does not teach the claimed distributor accumulator port arrangement. Br. 7. The Examiner considers port 102 in Hoashi as the claimed accumulator port, but acknowledges that there is no specific teaching in Hoashi that port 102 is an accumulator port (i.e., there is no connection between the port 102 and an accumulator). Ans. 11-12. The Examiner does not clearly explain a correspondence between the claimed ports and those in Hoashi. See Ans. 4-5. In Hoashi, the ports 101, 103 appear to form first head ports and the port 103 appears to form a second head port of a dual cylinder arrangement. See Hoashi, col. 2, ll. 26-27 and fig. 2. None of the ports appear to be rod ports as claimed. See Hoashi, fig. 2. Port 9 is a suction port and seems to most closely resemble the claimed accumulator port as port 9 is in fluid communication with a tank. See Hoashi, col. 4, l. 25 and fig. 2. Thus, we agree with Appellant that port 102 in Hoashi does not teach the claimed accumulator port such that modifying Inoue with Hoashiâ€™s port arrangement would result in the claimed port arrangement including an accumulator port and rod ports. Further, we note that the Examiner does not provide any explanation as to why one skilled in the art would modify port 102 from Hoashi to be an accumulator port or why one skilled in the art would modify Inoue based on Hoashi using port 102 as an accumulator port. The Examiner simply concludes that one skilled in the art would realize that port 102 could be connected to an accumulator. Ans. 12. For these reasons, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 1, 4-7, 9-12, 15, and 18-20. Appeal 2011-000434 Application 11/685,822 5 DECISION We REVERSE the Examinerâ€™s decision to reject claims 1, 4-7, 9-12, 15, and 18-20. REVERSED Klh