11101973 (B.P.A.I. May. 31, 2012)

Ex Parte Rauwendaal

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesMay 31, 2012

11101973 (B.P.A.I. May. 31, 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. 11/101,973 04/08/2005 Chris J. Rauwendaal 60419-300601 4289 73744 7590 05/31/2012 Patent Law Office of Larry Guernsey P.O. Box 720247 San Jose, CA 95172-0247 EXAMINER LEYSON, JOSEPH S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1744 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/31/2012 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 CHRIS J. RAUWENDAAL ____________________ Appeal 2011-000239 Application 11/101,973 Technology Center 1700 ____________________ Before: FRED E. MCKELVEY, JEFFREY T. SMITH, and RAE LYNN P. GUEST, Administrative Patent Judges. GUEST, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-000239 Application 11/101,973 2 I. STATEMENT OF CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 3, 4, 6-8, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 21-23. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. Appellant’s invention relates to an extruder screw which is said to have improved heat-transfer characteristics and mixing, narrower residence time distribution, and higher throughputs (Spec. 8:19-26). Claim 1 is illustrative: 1. An extruder screw for improved heat transfer in a screw extruder comprising: a central shaft; and a plurality of screw flights arranged upon said central shaft, each of said screw flights including at least one discontinuity, wherein said discontinuity is an interruption in said screw flight by which a portion of said screw flight is circumferentially displaced from the remainder of said screw flight, said extruder screw has a diameter dimension and said screw flights have a height dimension; and said screw flight height dimension lies in the range of 0.10 - 0.30 times said diameter dimension. The Examiner relies upon the following evidence: First Named Inventor Document No. Issue or Pub. Date Stenmark Kruder Blakeslee, III (“Blakeslee”) Wood Rauwendaal US 3,884,451 US 4,285,600 US 4,310,484 US 4,720,254 US 6,136,246 May 20, 1975 Aug. 25, 1981 Jan. 12, 1982 Jan. 19, 1988 Oct. 24, 2000 Appeal 2011-000239 Application 11/101,973 3 The Examiner maintains, and Appellant seeks review of, the following rejections: 1. The rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10. 11, and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stenmark or Wood in view of Blakeslee or Appellant’s Admitted Prior Art (hereinafter “AAPA”); 2. The rejection of claims 6, 13, and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stenmark or Wood in view of Blakeslee or AAPA and Kruder or Rauwendaal; and 3. The rejection of claims 21 and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stenmark or Wood in view of Kruder or Rauwendaal. We affirm for the reasons stated by the Examiner in the Answer. We add the following discussion for emphasis only. II. DISCUSSION Appellant does not contest the Examiner’s findings, stated in the Answer, that all of the features of the claimed invention are taught by the prior art of record (see generally, App. Br.). Appellant also does not contest the Examiner’s findings that the claimed flight height and width are flight dimensions well known to be operable conditions in a screw extruder (see Ans. 4; see generally App. Br.). Rather, Appellant contends that (a) despite the fact that the flight dimensions are well known in the art, the skilled artisan would not have used the known flight dimensions because the flight dimensions would result in such poor mixing to render the geometries unsuitable for the mixing operations of the primary references, Stenmark or Wood, and (b) that Appeal 2011-000239 Application 11/101,973 4 evidence of commercial success, long felt need, and/or copying demonstrate the nonobviousness of the claimed invention (App. Br. 6-20). Appellant’s evidence of poor mixing includes only statements to that effect in the Declarations of Rauwendaal1 and Gramann,2 and a computation of a screw compression ratio as discussed in the Elvax guide3 (App. Br. 8- 10). We agree with the Examiner that the Declarations of Rauwendaal and Gramann provide only conclusory statements of poor mixing without any underlying factual basis or reasoning to support such a statement and that these statements directly contradict the teachings of the prior art (see Ans. 11 and 15-16). For example, Appellant admits that a flight height of 0.1D is typical for a typical mixer screw (Spec. 4:10-13). Likewise, Appellant admits that the Blakeslee extruder screw is “configured for mixing operations,” as are Stenmark and Wood, and Appellant does not dispute that Blakeslee teaches the claimed extruder screw dimensions (App. Br. 6, first paragraph). In this case, we decline to credit the unsupported conclusions of the declarants vis-à-vis the objective statements of the prior art. We note that Blakeslee and Appellant’s Elvax guide describe extruder screws with feed, transition, and metering sections (see Blakeslee, col. 4, ll. 58-61, Elvax guide, Fig. 2). However, the claims are directed to a “screw extruder comprising . . . a plurality of screw flights,” which in no way limits 1 See Declaration of Chris J. Rauwendaal, dated September 23, 2008 (Evidence Appendix B), paragraph spanning pages 1 and 2. 2 See Declaration of Paul J. Gramann, dated September 29, 2008 (Evidence Appendix C), paragraph spanning pages 1 and 2 and first full paragraph on page 2. 3 Elvax Industrial Extrusion Guide, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Inc., p. 7 (September 2005) (Evidence Appendix A) Appeal 2011-000239 Application 11/101,973 5 the “plurality of screw flights” to only the metering flights of a mixing extruder screw. Rather, the feed flights of a mixing extruder would necessarily be encompassed by the claimed “plurality of flights” and would be suitable for use in a mixing extruder screw, as taught by the prior art. Additionally, for precisely the reasons discussed by the Examiner in the Answer (Ans. 11-20), Appellant’s evidence of commercial success, long felt need, and/or copying is insufficient under the law to establish nonobviousness of the claimed extruder screw. The Examiner has discussed Appellant’s evidence of secondary considerations in detail, namely the Declarations of Rauwendaal (Evidence Appendix B), Throne (Evidence Appendix G), and Nangeroni (Evidence Appendix H), Appellant’s Sales Figures (Evidence Appendix D), evidence regarding the Montreal Protocol (Evidence Appendix E), and competitor website (Evidence Appendix F) (Ans. 10-19). We agree with the Examiner that the particular facts necessary to establish that the claimed invention would not have been obvious in view of the prior art of references are not sufficiently established by Appellant’s evidence of secondary considerations. V. DECISION On the record before us and for the reasons discussed above, we affirm the rejections maintained by the Examiner. VI. TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). AFFIRMED ack