11032280 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 28, 2012)

Ex Parte Hennessy

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesMar 28, 2012

11032280 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 28, 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. 11/032,280 01/10/2005 Timothy David John Hennessy 34525/76 7567 32642 7590 03/29/2012 STOEL RIVES LLP - SLC 201 SOUTH MAIN STREET, SUITE 1100 ONE UTAH CENTER SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84111 EXAMINER HODGE, ROBERT W ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1729 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/29/2012 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 TIMOTHY DAVID JOHN HENNESSY ________________ Appeal 2011-001891 Application 11/032,280 Technology Center 1700 ________________ Before EDWARD C. KIMLIN, CATHERINE Q. TIMM, and LINDA M. GAUDETTE, Administrative Patent Judges. KIMLIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 1-5, 7-15, and 17- 20. Claims 21-40 have been withdrawn from consideration. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Claim 1 is illustrative: 1. A rechargeable energy storage system configured to couple to an electrical grid, comprising: a vanadium redox battery energy storage system, including: Appeal 2011-001891 Application 11/032,280 2 a vanadium redox battery cell having anolyte and catholyte solutions, an anolyte line coupled to the battery cell to carry anolyte solution, an anolyte reservoir coupled to the anolyte line and having anolyte solution, an anolyte variable speed pump coupled to the anolyte line to provide an anolyte flow rate, a catholyte line coupled to the battery cell to carry catholyte solution, a catholyte reservoir coupled to catholyte line and having catholyte solution, a catholyte variable speed pump coupled to the catholyte line to provide a catholyte flow rate, an anolyte thermometer in contact with the anolyte solution, and a catholyte thermometer in contact with the catholyte solution; and a control system in electrical communication with the vanadium redox battery cell to receive signals indicative of an open-circuit voltage of the vanadium redox battery cell, the control system further configured to be in electrical communication with an electrical grid and to determine grid conditions, the control system further in electrical communication with the anolyte and catholyte variable speed pumps and the anolyte and catholyte thermometers, the control system including, a processor, and a computer-readable medium in electrical communication with the processor and having a control program stored thereon, the control Appeal 2011-001891 Application 11/032,280 3 program comprising computer instructions executable on the processor for performing the method of, receiving anolyte and catholyte solution temperature signals from the anolyte and catholyte thermometers, calculating a state-of-charge for the vanadium redox battery cell from the open-circuit voltage and anolyte and catholyte solution temperature signals, calculating charge and discharge rates of the vanadium redox battery energy storage system, calculating anolyte and catholyte pump speeds from the state-of-charge, the charge and discharge rates, and grid conditions, and transmitting signals to the anolyte and catholyte variable speed pumps to control pump speed. The Examiner relies upon the following references as evidence of obviousness (Ans. 3): Kazacos 6,468,688 B2 Oct. 22, 2002 Berthold 6,519,041 B1 Feb. 11, 2003 Buelow 2004/0172943 A1 Sep. 09, 2004 Eckroad 2005/0012395 A1 Jan. 20, 2005 Skyllas-Kazacos WO 90/03666 Apr. 05, 1990 M. Skyllas-Kazacos et al., Vanadium Redox Battery Prototype: Design and Development, 1-256 (Department of Minerals and Energy 1991) (hereafter “Skyllas-Kazacos NPL”). Appellant’s claimed invention is directed to a rechargeable vanadium redox battery energy storage system comprising anolyte and catholyte solutions and variable speed pumps which provide anolyte and catholyte solutions to the battery cell. The system also comprises a control system in Appeal 2011-001891 Application 11/032,280 4 communication with an electrical grid such that the speeds of the anolyte and catholyte pumps are calculated based on, inter alia, grid conditions. Appealed claims 1-5, 7-15, and 17-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement.1 The appealed claims also stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as follows: (a) Claims 1, 7-11, 13, and 17-20 over Skyllas-Kazacos in view of Eckroad, (b) Claims 2 and 12 over Skyllas-Kazacos in view of Eckroad and Skyllas-Kazacos-NPL, (c) Claim 3 over Skyllas-Kazacos in view of Eckroad and Kazacos, (d) Claims 4 and 14 over Skyllas-Kazacos in view of Eckroad and Buelow, and (e) Claims 5 and 15 over Skyllas-Kazacos in view of Eckroad and Berthold. We have thoroughly reviewed the respective positions advanced by Appellant and the Examiner. In so doing, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner’s rejections are not well founded. We consider first the Examiner’s rejection under § 112, first paragraph, written description requirement. The Examiner, in the statement of the rejection, asserts that no support can be found anywhere in the instant disclosure that Appellant had possession of connecting the battery system to an electrical grid and using a control system to change the pump speeds based upon the monitored grid conditions. When Appellant pointed out in 1 The Examiner has withdrawn the rejection of claims 5 and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph. Appeal 2011-001891 Application 11/032,280 5 the Principal Brief that the Specification, at page 13, specifically discloses that the control system 200 provides for increasing pump speeds as the load of the grid increases, the Examiner explained for the first time in the Response section of the Answer that the Specification describes only a species of grid conditions, i.e., an increase or decrease in power, but does not describe the claimed genus of grid conditions, which may include power surges. Appellant’s Reply Brief, however, provides a reasonable argument regarding how one of ordinary skill in the art would have readily understood that Appellant’s Specification fairly describes the other grid conditions specified by the Examiner. The Examiner has not rebutted Appellant’s argument. Concerning claims 5 and 15, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner is erroneously interpreting the claims to require that the hydrogen emission sensors are in the anolyte and catholyte solutions. A reasonable interpretation of the claim language is that the sensors monitor the quantity of hydrogen emissions that emanate from the anolyte and catholyte solutions. We are confident that one of ordinary skill in the art would so interpret the claims when they are read in light of the present Specification. We now turn to the § 103 rejections. The Examiner acknowledges that Skyllas-Kazacos, although disclosing a vanadium redox battery energy storage system which controls the anolyte and catholyte pump speeds, does not teach connecting the battery system to an electrical power grid and calculating the anolyte and catholyte pump speeds from the monitored grid conditions. The Examiner cites Eckroad for directly connecting a vanadium redox battery to a power grid and using a control system that monitors the conditions of the power grid to operate the system “appropriately”. Appeal 2011-001891 Application 11/032,280 6 However, as emphasized by Appellant, the Examiner points to no disclosure in Eckroad that the control system monitors the conditions of the power grid to calculate the anolyte and catholyte pump speeds, as presently claimed. We agree with Appellant that Eckroad’s teaching of monitoring the conditions of the power grid to operate the system appropriately would not have suggested specifically modifying the system of Skyllas-Kazacos to calculate the anolyte and catholyte pump speeds based on the grid conditions rather than the state-of-charge disclosed by Skyllas-Kazacos. We cannot agree with the Examiner that Eckroad’s general teaching of appropriately operating the system in response to grid conditions would have provided the requisite suggestion to set the pump speeds in accordance with the grid conditions. The additional references cited by the Examiner do not remedy the basic deficiency of the combination of Skyllas-Kazacos and Eckroad discussed above. In conclusion, based on the foregoing, we are constrained to reverse the Examiner’s rejections. REVERSED ssl