Ex Parte Bonnet et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 5, 2012

10628153 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 5, 2012)

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.
10/628,153 07/28/2003 Christian Bonnet Serie 6034 4378
7590 09/06/2012
Linda K. Russell
Air Liquide
Suite 1800
2700 Post Oak Blvd.
Houston, TX 77056
EXAMINER
ELVE, MARIA ALEXANDRA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3742
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/06/2012 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 BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________
Ex parte CHRISTIAN BONNET, JEAN-MARIE FORTAIN,
and MARC WAGNER
____________________

Appeal 2010-009260
Application 10/628,153
Technology Center 3700
____________________

Before: JENNIFER D. BAHR, CHARLES N. GREENHUT, and
SCOTT E. KAMHOLZ, Administrative Patent Judges.

KAMHOLZ, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2010-009260
Application 10/628,153

2
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims
39, 42, 46, and 50. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

THE CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Claim 50, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
50. A method which may be used for welding a metal
workpiece onto a brazed zone, said method comprising:
a) creating a brazed zone on a first workpiece, wherein said
brazed zone comprises a copper / phosphorus alloy;
b) depositing at least one additional layer onto at least part
of said brazed zone, wherein:
1) said additional layer comprises a copper / tin alloy;
and
2) said copper / tin alloy comprises at least about 1.0 %
tin by weight;
and
c) welding a second workpiece to said additional layer,
wherein said additional layer protects said brazed zone
during said welding.

REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Quaas
Clarke
Davidian
US 3,392,017
US 4,423,618
US 6,347,662 B1
Jul. 9, 1968
Jan. 3, 1984
Feb. 19, 2002
Harris US 2003/0021717 A1 Jan. 30, 2003
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Application 10/628,153

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REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claim 50 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as encompassing subject matter
unpatentable over Quaas in view of Davidian.
Claims 39 and 42 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as encompassing subject
matter unpatentable over Davidian in view of either Quaas, Clarke, or
Harris.
Claim 46 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as encompassing subject matter
unpatentable over Davidian in view of Quaas.

ANALYSIS
1. Claim 50
Appellants argue in the Appeal Brief that neither reference teaches
brazing a second alloy on a first alloy and then welding to the second alloy.
App. Br. 11-13.1 Appellants also argue in the Appeal Brief that neither
reference combines brazing and welding. App. Br. 11-13. Appellants argue
in the Reply Brief that “brazing” and “welding” are distinct processes, so
that claim limitations directed to them should be construed distinctly from
one another. Reply Br. 4-5.
In response to the Appeal Brief arguments, the Examiner made
several findings, including:
1. Quaas discloses welding, including welding that involves use of
copper-based alloys that may also contain tin (4-25%) and

1 Appeal Brief filed Dec. 21, 2009. All subsequent citations to the Appeal
Brief refer to that filing.
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Application 10/628,153

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phosphorus (0.1-1%), which alloys have sufficiently low
melting points that they can be deposited on base metals such as
brass and bronze, without melting those base metals. Ans. 3, 8
(citing Quaas col. 2, ll. 5-10).2
2. Welding in which the base metal is not melted is known in the
art as brazing. Ans. 7 (citing definitions from the American
Society for Metals, “ASM”).
3. Brass and bronze themselves are low-melting alloys that may
be used in brazing solders, and because Quaas discloses
applying brazing solders to brass and bronze themselves, Quaas
therefore suggests depositing one braze on another braze. Ans.
9.
4. Davidian discloses a heat exchanger in which parallel plates 8
(made of an alloy having at least 80% copper) are separated by
exchange corrugations 6 (made of an alloy having at least 80%
copper) which are fixed by brazing material. Ans. 10.
5. Davidian’s corrugations have a low melting temperature
composition, such that they constitute brazing materials and
meet the claimed brazed zone. Ans. 10.
As a result of these findings, the Examiner concluded that the
combination of the corrugations with the brazing filler material meets the
creating, depositing, and welding steps, with Quaas disclosing alloys that
meet the recited compositions. Ans. 10. The Examiner reasoned that

2 Examiner’s Answer mailed Mar. 17, 2010. All subsequent citations to the
Answer refer to that mailing.
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brazing meets the recited welding step because brazing is a type of welding.
Ans. 10-11.
Appellants do not specifically contest the Examiner’s findings listed
above; rather, they argue the construction of claim limitations directed to
welding and brazing. Reply Br. 4-5. We adopt as our own each of the
Examiner’s findings listed above. We agree with the Examiner’s
conclusions based on these uncontested findings and find Appellants’
Appeal Brief arguments unconvincing.
We find Appellants’ arguments in the Reply Brief concerning the
proper construction of welding and brazing (or brazed elements)
unconvincing. Two terms may have definitions that partially overlap with
one another and yet remain distinct from one another because they are of
different scope. Such is the case for the terms welding and brazing. The
passages of their Specification that Appellants cite as distinguishing those
terms do not amount to special mutually-exclusive definitions of those terms
for purposes of their patent application. Appellants have offered no
evidence to question the accuracy or applicability of the ASM definitions
that the Examiner cited; we consequently adopt the ASM definitions.
By these definitions, brazing is a subset of welding; as such, any act
of brazing is also an act of welding, though an act of welding is not
necessarily an act of brazing. See Ans. 6-7. These terms, therefore, have
scopes different from one another; construing them to encompass the same
acts under certain circumstances offends no principle of claim construction
that Appellants have identified. There is no limitation in claim 50 that
distinguishes the claimed welding step from the brazing-type welding
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disclosed by Davidian. We therefore find that Appellants have identified no
reversible error in the rejection.
2. Claims 39 and 42
Appellants argue claims 39 and 42 as a group; accordingly, we select
claim 39 as representative, and claim 42 stands or falls with claim 39. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011).
The Examiner made three separate rejections of these claims:
unpatentability over Davidian in view of Quaas, over Davidian in view of
Clarke, and over Davidian in view of Harris. In addressing the rejection
over Davidian in view of Quaas, Appellants refer to the arguments given for
claim 50 and do not present any additional arguments directed to distinctions
between claim 39 and claim 50. App. Br. 14. We therefore find that
Appellants have not identified any reversible error in the rejection of claims
39 and 42 over Davidian in view of Quaas for the reasons given above.
Appellants do not contest the Examiner’s findings that Clarke and
Harris each disclose phosphorous-copper braze (Ans. 5, 12-14). Instead,
Appellants argue that the combination of Davidian with either Clarke or
Harris does not teach or suggest welding to a brazed matrix. App. Br. 14-16.
This argument is unconvincing for the reasons given above, and we find that
Appellants have not identified any reversible error in the rejection of claims
39 and 42 over Davidian in view of Clarke or over Davidian in view of
Harris.
3. Claim 46
Appellants make no separate argument for claim 46 as compared to
claim 39. App. Br. 16. We therefore find that Appellants have not
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identified any reversible error in the rejection of this claim for the reasons
given above.

DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 39, 42, 46,
and 50 is AFFIRMED.

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2009).

AFFIRMED

mls