13017789 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 9, 2018)

Ex Parte Schaben

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 9, 2018

13017789 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 9, 2018)

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. 13/017,789 01/31/2011 Kurt T. Schaben 11025-3 7344 16464 7590 01/09/2018 Evans & Dixon, LLC Metropolitan Square 211 N. Broadway, Suite 2500 St. Louis, MO 63102 EXAMINER YUEN, JESSICA JIPING ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3743 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/09/2018 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte KURT T. SCHABEN ____________ Appeal 2017-002184 Application 13/017,789 Technology Center 3700 ____________ Before MICHAEL L. HOELTER, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and ERIC C. JESCHKE, Administrative Patent Judges. JESCHKE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Kurt T. Schaben (“Appellant”) seeks review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s decision, as set forth in the Final Office Action dated October 6, 2014 (“Final Act.”), and as further explained in the Advisory Action dated April 29, 2015 (“Adv. Act.”), rejecting claims 11–29. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Appeal 2017-002184 Application 13/017,789 2 BACKGROUND The disclosed subject matter “relates to clothes dryers and, more particularly, to a hybrid heat clothes dryer.” Spec. ¶ 2. Claims 11 and 27 are independent. Claim 11 is reproduced below, with emphasis added: 11. A hybrid heat clothes dryer comprising: a dryer drum and heat supply duct; a hydronic coil and a resistive heat element housed within the heat supply duct, the hydronic coil adapted to receive a liquid from an exterior heat source; the hydronic coil and resistive heat element configured to exchange heat with air passing through the heat supply duct; a blower adapted to pass air over the hydronic coil and the resistive heat element and into the dryer drum; and a control circuit adapted to switch the resistive heat element on and off in response to a predetermined temperature of air entering the dryer drum. EVIDENCE RELIED ON BY THE EXAMINER Smith US 2,958,140 Nov. 1, 1960 Sasnett US 3,116,123 Dec. 31, 1963 Stickney US 6,237,855 B1 May 29, 2001 Brown US 2006/0218812 A1 Oct. 5, 2006 Ahn Translation of Korean Registered Patent No. 10-0652772 June 14, 2006 KSU Engineering Extension, Solid-Fuel Heating Appliances (June 2003) (“KSU”). Appeal 2017-002184 Application 13/017,789 3 REJECTIONS 1. Claims 11, 14, 20, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn and Sasnett. 2. Claims 12 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, and Smith. 3. Claims 13 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, and KSU. 4. Claims 15, 21, 28, and 29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, and Brown. 5. Claims 17 and 29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, Smith, and Brown. 6. Claims 19 and 29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, KSU, and Brown. 7. Claim 22 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, and Stickney. 8. Claim 23 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, Smith, and Stickney. 9. Claims 24 and 29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, Smith, Brown, and Stickney. 10. Claim 25 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, KSU, and Stickney. 11. Claims 26 and 29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, KSU, Brown, and Stickney. 12. Claim 29 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ahn, Sasnett, Stickney, and Brown. Appeal 2017-002184 Application 13/017,789 4 DISCUSSION Rejection 1 – Claims 11, 14, 20, and 27 Independent claim 11 recites, among other limitations, “a hydronic coil and a resistive heat element housed within the heat supply duct, the hydronic coil adapted to receive a liquid from an exterior heat source.” Claims App. 2 (emphasis added).1 Independent claim 27 recites, among other limitations, “warming the flow of air by passing the flow of air over the hydronic coil, the hydronic coil having liquid warmed by an exterior heat source flowing therethrough.” Id. at 5 (emphasis added). In the Rejection, the Examiner identified (1) element 50 in Ahn as the “hydronic coil,” (2) element 45 as the “resistive heat element,” (3) element 40 as the “heat supply duct,” and (4) element 52 as the “exterior heat source.” Final Act. 2; see also Ahn, Figs. 3 and 4 (showing the identified elements). The Examiner found that element 52 in Ahn is an “exterior” heat source because element “52 is external to heat supply duct 40.” Final Act. 2. Appellant argues that “the dryer of Ahn clearly does not use or suggest an exterior heat source to heat the liquid,” but rather uses an “internal condenser-evaporator.” Appeal Br. 8–9. According to Appellant, “[b]ecause the condenser-evaporator component is contained within the Ahn dryer cabinet, it is not using liquid from an exterior heat source.” Id. at 9. For the reasons discussed below, we agree with Appellant that Ahn does not disclose an “exterior heat source” under the proper construction of “exterior.” 1 Citations to “Claims App.” refer to the version of the claims provided on April 17, 2015, in the Response to Notification of Non- Compliant Appeal Brief. Citations to “Appeal Br.” refer to the brief filed on February 6, 2015. Appeal 2017-002184 Application 13/017,789 5 During examination, claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, reading the claim language in light of the specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 833 (Fed. Cir. 1990). Here, we agree with Appellant that, in paragraph 21, the Specification “indicates that an exterior heat source is not something ‘installed within the dryer housing.’” Reply Br. 4; see Spec. ¶ 21 (“In other embodiments, the hybrid heat dryer 10 may be a self-contained unit with connections to supply the dryer with recirculated warmed liquid from an exterior heat source (with the hydronic coil and blower installed within the dryer housing).” (emphasis added)). Thus, we determine that one of ordinary skill in the art reading the Specification would interpret “exterior” in claims 11 and 27 as outside of the recited “dryer.” This construction is further supported by, for example, paragraph 16 of the Specification, which, as noted by Appellant (Reply Br. 4), discloses certain exemplary heat sources that would be located outside of the “dryer,” such as “an outdoor wood boiler,” “a gas fired furnace, an oil fired furnace, a hot water storage tank or the like.” The Examiner states that “claims 11 and 27 do not define what and where the claimed ‘exterior source’ is.” Ans. 10. As a general matter, we agree with the Examiner; the language of claims 11 and 27 does not expressly limit “exterior” as set forth above.2 For the reasons above, however, when considering the term “exterior” in claims 11 and 27 in light 2 Moreover, if read in isolation, the language of the second clause of claim 11 could be viewed as contrasting the term “exterior” with the phrase “within the heat supply duct.” See Claims App. 2. Claim 27, however, does not contrast “exterior” in a similar way. Appeal 2017-002184 Application 13/017,789 6 of the Specification, as we must, we determine that the construction set forth above is the one consistent with Appellant’s Specification. See In re Smith Int’l, Inc., 871 F.3d 1375, 1382–83 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (stating that the “broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification . . . is an interpretation that corresponds with what and how the inventor describes his invention in the specification, i.e., an interpretation that is ‘consistent with the specification’” (quoting In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997)). Turning to the prior art, the “heat source” identified by the Examiner—element 52 in Ahn—is within dryer 30. See Ahn, Figs. 3, 4. As such, element 52 is not an “exterior heat source” under the proper construction of “exterior.” Thus, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 11 and 27, and also do not sustain the rejection of claims 14 and 20 (which depend from claim 11). Rejections 2 – 12 – Claim 12, 13, 15–19, 21–26, 28, and 29 Claims 12, 13, 15–19, 21–26, and 29 depend from claim 11, and claim 28 depends from claim 27. Claims App. 2–6. The Examiner’s reliance on the additional prior art applied in these Rejections—Smith, KSU, Brown, and Stickney—does not remedy the deficiencies in the combined teachings of Ahn and Sasnett, discussed above (see supra Rejection 1). Thus, for the same reasons discussed above, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 12, 13, 15–19, 21–26, 28, and 29. Appeal 2017-002184 Application 13/017,789 7 DECISION We reverse the decision to reject claims 11–29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). REVERSED