13392967 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 26, 2017)

Ex Parte Pyles et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 26, 2017

13392967 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 26, 2017)

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. 13/392,967 02/28/2012 Robert A. Pyles BMS092022US/MD09-17-US 4936 157 7590 04/28/2017 Covestro LLC 1 Covestro Circle PITTSBURGH, PA 15205 EXAMINER HIDALGO-HERNANDEZ, RUTH G ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3726 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/28/2017 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): veronica.thompson@covestro.com US-IPR@covestro.com laura.finnell @ covestro. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ROBERT A. PYLES and JOEL MATSCO Appeal 2015-007089 Application 13/392,967 Technology Center 3700 Before MICHELLE R. OSINSKI, JILL D. HILL, and PAUL J. KORNICZKY, Administrative Patent Judges. OSINSKI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Robert A. Pyles and Joel Matsco (Appellants)1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—12. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as “Bayer MaterialScience LLC.” Br. 1. Appeal 2015-007089 Application 13/392,967 THE CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Claims 1 and 7 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below and is illustrative of the claimed subject matter on appeal. 1. A process for manufacturing a polyurethane wind turbine blade comprising: forming a mold for the wind turbine blade at or near a wind farm site; injecting an isocyanate and an isocyanate reactive- component with an automated reaction injection molding (“RIM”) machine into the mold; closing, pressing and heating the mold to cure the resulting installing the blade into the wind turbine. EVIDENCE The Examiner relied on the following evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal: Hodakowski Weber Pennisi Lin Cageao Black US 4,131,602 US 4,218,543 US 5,439,622 US 2006/0225278 A1 US 2007/0160793 A1 RIM Molding for Wind Blade Skins, Composite Technology Dec. 26, 1978 Aug. 19, 1980 Aug. 8, 1995 Oct. 12, 2006 July 12, 2007 Oct. 1,2006 REJECTIONS I. Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Black, Lin, and Weber. Final Act. 2—3. II. Claim 2 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Black, Lin, Weber, and Hodakowski. Id. at 3^4. III. Claims 3—6 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Black, Lin, Weber, and Pennisi. Id. at 4—6. 2 Appeal 2015-007089 Application 13/392,967 IV. Claim 7 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Black, Lin, Weber, and Cageao. Id. at 6—8. V. Claim 8 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Black, Lin, Weber, Cageao, and Hodakowski. Id. at 8—9. VI. Claims 9-12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Black, Lin, Weber, Cageao, and Pennisi. Id. at 9-10. OPINION Rejection I The Examiner finds that Black teaches the limitations of independent claim 1, except for forming a mold for a wind turbine blade specifically at or near a wind farm site', closing, pressing, and heating the mold to cure the resulting polyurethane; and installing the blade into the wind turbine. Final Act. 2. The Examiner finds that Weber teaches closing, pressing, and heating a mold to cure resulting polyurethane, and concludes that it would have been obvious to modify Black to perform these steps because they “are well known steps conducted during the RIM process.” Id. at 3 (citing Weber, 1:55-60,2:15-35). As to the steps of forming the mold for the wind turbine blade at or near a wind farm site and installing the blade into the wind turbine, the Examiner finds that Lin teaches manufacturing components of a wind turbine blade at a “second manufacturing facility [that] is closer to the wind farm location” than a primary manufacturing facility, and also teaches “installation [of the components] into the wind turbine at the wind farm location.” Id. at 2—3 (citing Lin | 8). The Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to manufacture components of the wind turbine blade “at a location near the wind farm site and installing the blade into the wind 3 Appeal 2015-007089 Application 13/392,967 turbine for the advantage of improving the quality of fabrications^] as well as transportation requirements of large wind turbine blades.” Id. at 3 (citing Lin 17). The Examiner clarifies that it would be obvious to manufacture “[t]he finished blade of Black . . . using the RIM process at or near the wind farm site, for the advantage of minimizing the transportation requirements of large wind turbine blades, i.e., so that the blade doesn’t have to be transported long distances.” Ans. 10. Appellants argue that Black fails to teach or suggest manufacturing wind turbine blades at or near the wind farm site and instead mentions a “shop floor.” Br. 5. This argument is not persuasive in that it does not address the rejection as articulated by the Examiner. The Examiner has acknowledged that Black fails to teach manufacturing at or near a wind farm site (Final Act. 2), and relies on the teachings of Lin in combination with Black (id. at 2—3). With respect to Lin, Appellants argue that Lin also fails to teach or suggest manufacturing wind turbine blades at or near the wind farm site, “instead teaching to manufacture the blades at a primary site, a secondary site and to assemble the pre-manufactured blades at a third site, i.e., the wind farm.” Br. 5 (emphasis added). We are not persuaded that Lin fails to teach or suggest manufacturing wind turbine blades near the wind farm site, as recited in claim 1. Appellants appear to concede that Lin teaches manufacturing at least a portion of wind turbine blades at a secondary site. The Examiner has made findings that the secondary site is closer to the wind farm location. Final Act. 3 (citing Lin | 8). Neither Appellants nor the Specification provide a definition of the claim term “near.” If the Specification does not assign or suggest a particular definition to a claim 4 Appeal 2015-007089 Application 13/392,967 term, it is appropriate to consult a general dictionary definition of the word for guidance in determining the ordinary and customary meaning of the claim term as viewed by a person of ordinary skill in the art. Comaper Corp. v. Antec, Inc., 596 F.3d 1343, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2010). Here, the ordinary and customary meaning of the word “near” is “at, within, or to a short distance.” Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Dictionary (2017), available at www.dictionary.com. Thus, according to the ordinary meaning of the word “near,” claim 1 merely calls for the mold for the wind turbine blade to be formed within a short distance of the wind farm site. We find nothing in the Specification inconsistent with this ordinary meaning. See In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (the words of the claim must be given their plain meaning unless the plain meaning is inconsistent with the Specification). We determine that it is reasonable for the Examiner to consider the secondary site that is closer to the wind farm location to be within a short distance of the wind farm site, and thus, near the wind farm site, as claimed. See Lin 117 (“the secondary manufacturing facilities 24 include local production sites (i.e.[,] relatively closer to the wind farm 12”). The Examiner also has made findings that Black teaches forming a “whole [wind turbine] blade,” albeit on a shop floor, and not necessarily near a wind farm site. Ans. 9. The Examiner has also reasonably made findings that wind turbine blades are “large” {id. at 10) and that Lin teaches a need to improve transportation requirements of large wind turbine blades (Final Act. 3 (citing Lin 17)). With these relevant facts in mind, one of ordinary skill in the art would have had a desire to use Black’s process to manufacture the whole 5 Appeal 2015-007089 Application 13/392,967 (i.e., large) wind turbine blade at Lin’s second manufacturing facility closer to the wind farm site, as opposed to Lin’s first manufacturing facility. Consequently, we agree with the Examiner that it would have been obvious to manufacture the finished blade of Black at the secondary manufacturing facility to minimize transportation requirements of the large wind turbine blades. Ans. 10. Accordingly, the Examiner has provided an adequate reason with rational underpinning to support the conclusion of the obviousness of making the wind turbine blade at or near a wind farm site. For the foregoing reasons, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 1 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Black, Lin, and Weber. Rejections II—VI Appellants’ arguments in support of the patentability of the rejected claims 2—12 relate solely to the perceived deficiencies in the combination of Black, Lin, and Weber. Br. 6—14. Because we have found no such deficiencies, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2—12. Accordingly, we sustain, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), the rejection of: claim 2 as unpatentable over Black, Lin, Weber, and Hodakowski; claims 3—6 as unpatentable over Black, Lin, Weber, and Pennisi; claim 7 as unpatentable over Black, Lin, Weber, and Cageao; claim 8 as unpatentable over Black, Lin, Weber, Cageao, and Hodakowski; and claims 9-12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Black, Lin, Weber, Cageao, and Pennisi. 6 Appeal 2015-007089 Application 13/392,967 DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) 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)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 7