Ex Parte HOELZL et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 10, 2018

14088864 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 10, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/088,864 11/25/2013
513 7590 09/12/2018
WENDEROTH, LIND & PONACK, L.L.P.
1030 15th Street, N.W.,
Suite 400 East
Washington, DC 20005-1503
UNITED ST A TES OF AMERICA
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Rainer HOELZL
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
2013-1846A 1125
EXAMINER
LEYSON, JOSEPH S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1744
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/12/2018 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):
eoa@wenderoth.com
kmiller@wenderoth.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte RAINER HOLZL, ALBIN KERN,
JOHANN VOGGENEDER, and MARKUS W AHLMUELLER
Appeal 2017-011198
Application 14/088,864
Technology Center 1700
Before JEFFREY T. SMITH, BEYERL YA. FRANKLIN, and
MERRELL C. CASHION, JR., Administrative Patent Judges.
CASHION, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
decision finally rejecting claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellant is the Applicant ENGEL AUSTRIA GmbH of Schwertberg,
Austria. Applicant is also identified as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2017-011198
Application 14/088,864
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The invention is directed to an operating unit for an injection mold
machine where the operating unit saves the operator from having to perform
a search for corresponding items of information or warnings, upon actuation
of a hand button. Spec. 1. According to the Specification, the invention
achieves this by using a data processing device to call up status information
as to the activatability or non-activitability of an associated injection
molding machine element and, in particular, to guide the operator to a cause
of non-activatability without the operator being required to search for it. Id.
at 2. Claim 1 is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal and is reproduced
below (formatting added):
1. An operating unit for an injection molding machine having
a display screen,
a data processing device and
at least one hand button for operation of injection molding machine
elements,
wherein items of information which are associated with the injection
molding machine elements and which are present in the injection molding
machine are called up by the data processing device,
wherein items of status information which are associated with the
injection molding machine elements and which are present in the injection
molding machine with respect to activatability or non-activatability of the
corresponding injection molding machine elements are called up by the data
processing device and,
in response to a triggering of a motion sequence of one or more of the
injection molding machine elements by the at least one hand button,
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Appeal 2017-011198
Application 14/088,864
if the item of status information associated with the
corresponding injection molding machine element indicates
activatability, at least one operating signal is sent to the injection
molding machine and the associated items of information are
represented on the display screen or,
if the item of status information associated with the
corresponding injection molding machine element indicates non-
activatability, the associated items of information and a warning
indication indicating non-activatability are represented on the display
screen.
Appellant (see generally App. Br.) requests review of the following
rejections from the Examiner's Final Office Action2 :
I. Claims 1-17, 19, and 20 rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ I03(a) as unpatentable over Morwald (US 6,925,354 B2, issued August 2,
2005) and Moerwald (AT 509 779 Al, published November 15, 2011, and
relying on an English machine translation of a related Abstract dated
November 14, 2013).
II. Claim 18 rejected underpre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over Morwald, Moerwald, and Kubota (US 6,821,104 B2,
issued November 23, 2004).
Appellant presents arguments for independent claim 1 and does not
present separate arguments for claims 2-17, 19, 20, and separately rejected
claim 18. See generally App. Br. Accordingly, we select independent claim
1 as representative of the subject matter before us on appeal. Claims 2-20
stand or fall with claim 1.
2 The Examiner withdrew the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112 (pre-AIA),
second paragraph. Ans. 5---6. Accordingly, this rejection is not before us for
review on appeal.
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Appeal 2017-011198
Application 14/088,864
ANALYSIS
After review of the respective positions provided by Appellant in the
Appeal and Reply Briefs and by the Examiner in the Final Action and the
Answer, we affirm the rejections of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
for the reasons presented by the Examiner. We add the following for
emphasis.
Claim 1
Appellant does not dispute the Examiner's findings that the combined
teachings of the cited art disclose an operating unit for an injection molding
machine comprising a display screen, a data processing device and at least
one hand button for operation of injection molding machine elements. Final
Act. 4---6; see generally App. Br. Appellant, however, argues that the
claimed operating unit displays data about the movement (activatability) or
non-movement (non-activatability) of an injection molding machine
component as soon as an attempt for moving the component is made. App.
Br. 5. According to Appellant, Morwald discloses sequence programming
of the injection-molding machine before operation of the handling device in
a manner that safety conditions are stored such that steps which infringe
safety conditions are noticed immediately during programming and are not
allowed from the outset. Id. Appellant contends that Morwald's sequence
programming does not make prohibited motion sequences available to an
operator of the injection-molding machine and, thus, corresponding safety
information cannot be displayed in response thereto. Id. at 6. Thus,
Appellant argues there is no disclosure in Morwald of displaying data at the
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Application 14/088,864
time of an attempt to move a component of the injection molding machine as
claimed. Id.
We are unpersuaded by these arguments. As the Examiner explains,
Morwald's preprograming of safety conditions does not mean that steps that
infringe on these safety conditions could not be attempted during operation
of the device. Ans. 8. As noted by the Examiner, Morwald discloses as an
example that
the safety condition can be formulated that the basic movement
module "Close mould" is only allowed if the state of a different
basic movement module, i.e. that of the ejector is "Ejector not
extended". The safety conditions which can thus be easily
created by means of graphic symbols can then be stored and
subsequently taken into account during programming or when
operating the injection-moulding machine.
Morwald col. 2, 11. 13-20 (cited in Final Act. 4; Ans. 3). In fact, Morwald
discloses that the safety conditions are in place so as to notice the problem
before a complete sequence program ( operation) is complete and to exclude
movements which could possibly lead to damage to machine parts. Ans. 3;
Morwald col. 2, 11. 30-42, col. 4, 11. 40-43. Morwald further discloses that it
can also be immediately seen how the safety condition is being infringed
during diagnosis, including the provision of error messages. Morwald col. 4,
11. 60-62, col. 5, 11. 30-34. Thus, Appellant has not adequately explained
reversible error in the Examiner's determination of obviousness because, as
the Examiner explains, Morwald's disclosure suggests displaying data at the
time of an attempt to move a component of the injection molding machine.
Ans. 8-9.
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Application 14/088,864
Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-20
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for the reasons presented by the Examiner and
given above.
ORDER
The Examiner's rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are 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). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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