14093773 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 20, 2018)

Ex Parte Wang et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 20, 2018

14093773 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 20, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/093,773 12/02/2013 27752 7590 12/25/2018 THE PROCTER & GAMBLE COMPANY Global IP Services Central Building, C9 One Procter and Gamble Plaza CINCINNATI, OH 45202 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Xiandong Wang 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. Z-4845D 9155 EXAMINER PRONE, JASON D ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3724 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/25/2018 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): centraldocket.im @pg.com pair_pg@firsttofile.com mayer.jk@pg.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte XIANDONG WANG and NEVILLE SONNENBERG 1 Appeal2018-003367 Application 14/093,773 Technology Center 3700 Before JENNIFERD. BAHR, WILLIAM A. CAPP, and FREDERICK C. LANEY, Administrative Patent Judges. BAHR, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-7. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 The Gillette Company is the applicant as provided in 3 7 C.F .R. Â§ 1.46 and is identified as the real party in interest. Br. 1. Appeal2018-003367 Application 14/093,773 THE CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter. 1. A razor blade comprising a blade edge having a coating comprised of a polymeric material, said polymeric material isostatically-pressed. REJECTIONS 2 I. Claims 1-5 stand provisionally rejected under the judicially created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting over claims 1, 2, 4, and 9-12 of co-pending Application 14/136,548. II. Claims 1-7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ I03(a) as unpatentable over Appellant's Admitted Prior Art (Spec. 2:30- 3: 18; Fig. 1) (hereinafter "AAPA") and Arnold (US 7,043,819 Bl, issued May 16, 2006). DISCUSSION Rejection I-Obviousness-Type Double Patenting Appellant does not contest the merits of this provisional obviousness- type double patenting rejection. See Br. 4 (indicating an intention to file a terminal disclaimer upon indication of allowable subject matter). This rejection is a provisional rejection because prosecution has not closed on either the present application or co-pending Application 14/136,548. Thus, because claims in both applications may be further amended, or other circumstances may change, thereby potentially obviating the rejection, and 2 The Examiner withdrew a rejection under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 112, second paragraph. Ans. 4; see Final Act. 2. 2 Appeal2018-003367 Application 14/093,773 because no other pending rejection is affirmed herein, we decline to reach the obviousness-type double patenting rejection, and leave it to the Examiner to determine whether the rejection is still proper after the jurisdiction of both the present application and co-pending Application 14/136,548 is returned to the Examiner, consistent with the guidance provided in Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) Â§ 804. See Ex parte Moncla, 95 USPQ2d 1884 (BP AI 2010) (precedential). Rejection II-Obviousness The AAP A product is produced by applying spraying polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) particles on and around the tip of the blade, sintering the blade and particles with Argon to produce a sintered PTFE coating, and then subjecting the blade and sintered coating to "FLUTECÂ® technology," which includes soaking the PTFE coated blades in solvents under elevated temperatures (about 270Â°C to about 370Â°C) and pressure (between about 3atm and about 6atm). Spec. 3:1-11. The disadvantages of this FLUTECÂ® approach are that the solvent typically removes most of the PTFE materials, which provide the improved shaving attributes, from the sintered coating, and the resultant coatings "still exhibit porosity since coating molecules are not densely packed." Id. at 3:21-26. The Examiner finds that AAP A fails to disclose the polymeric material is an isostatically-pressed polymeric material, as required in claim 1, and a coating having "substantially zero porosity," as called for in claim 4. Ans. 3. The Examiner correctly points out that "[t]he patentability of a product does not depend on its method of production" and that "[i]f the product in the product-by-process claim is the same as or obvious from a 3 Appeal2018-003367 Application 14/093,773 product of the prior art, the claim is unpatentable even though the prior product was made by a different process." Id. at 4--5 (quoting In re Thorpe, 777 F.2d 695, 698 (Fed. Cir. 1985)). The Examiner then states that the "'isostatically-pressed' limitation [in claim 1] is still considered a product- by-process limitation." Id. at 5. However, the Examiner does not explicitly articulate a finding that the AAP A product (produced by sintering and FLUTECÂ® technology) and the product of claim 1 (produced using isostatic pressing) reasonably appear to be the same, much less provide any technical reasoning to support such a finding. Claim 4 depends from claim 1 and further recites a thickness range, as well as "substantially uniform surface morphology" and "substantially zero porosity" for the polymeric material. Br. 13 (Claims App.). As noted above, the Examiner finds that AAP A "does not disclose ... the substantially zero porosity limitation of claim 4." Ans. 5. The Examiner relies on Arnold to address the deficiencies in AAP A. See Final Act. 3--4; Ans. 5---6. The Examiner finds that "Arnold teaches it is old and well known in the art of forming metal parts with coatings to incorporate an isostatically-pressed polymeric material (Figure 1 (a) Step Five) and the coating has substantially zero porosity ( column 20 line 49)." Ans. 3. The Examiner determines it would have been obvious to replace the FL UTECÂ® technology step of AAP A ( step 17 in Figure 1) with the HIP treatment (Figure 1 (a), Step Five) of Arnold because the substitution of one known element for another would have yielded predictable results and all claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective function and the combination would have yielded predictable results. 4 Appeal2018-003367 Application 14/093,773 Ans. 3--4. Appellant argues, among other things, that the combination of AAP A and Arnold proposed by the Examiner would not have been obvious because Arnold does not disclose using HIP to coat a polymeric material onto a razor blade material, and that a person having ordinary skill in the art would not have viewed Arnold's diffusion bonding technique, which is used for bonding metallic materials, as necessarily suitable for coating polymeric material onto a razor blade. Br. 9--10. Arnold discloses using a high density coating process and HIP treatment to form a durable wear resistant coating on a metal part. See Arnold 19:64--21:57. Arnold teaches forming a workpiece substrate to near- finished dimensions for the part, and then selecting an appropriate coating material composition. Id. 20: 19--23. Arnold emphasizes that "[t ]he selection of both the substrate and coating composition ... depends on their metallurgical compatibility with each other." Id. 20:29-31. Arnold teaches that the high density coating process, such as the Hyper Velocity Oxyfuel (HVOF) plasma thermal spray process, "results in extremely dense, well- bonded coatings" that are "nearly 100% dense," with "a porosity of about 0.5%." Id. 20:46--49. Arnold also teaches that a diffusion bond is created by subjecting the coated workpiece substrate to an HIP treatment. Id. 20:64--66. According to Arnold, "HIP treatment is conventionally used in the densification of cast metal components and as a diffusion bonding technique for consolidating powder metals." Id. 21: 15-17. Arnold explains that the HIP treatment converts the mechanical bond formed between the substrate and the applied coating to a metallurgical bond by creating a diffusion bond between the coating material and the substrate. Id. 22:32-36. 5 Appeal2018-003367 Application 14/093,773 The diffusion bond eliminates the interface boundary, which is usually the site of failure, and creates a product having "desired surface properties, such as wear resistance, color, smoothness, texture, etc." Id. 22:36-39. In light of the above teachings of Arnold, we agree with Appellant that a person of ordinary skill in the art would not have viewed the HIP diffusion bond-creating technique of Arnold as applicable, as a substitute for the FLUTECÂ® technology, in the process of coating polymeric material to razor blades in the AAP A process. The teaching of creating a metallurgical bond between metal materials would have no apparent applicability in bonding polymeric coating material to razor blades and would not have prompted a person having ordinary skill in the art to use HIP in the AAP A process. The Examiner cites a new reference (Logethetis, US 6,099,677) in an attempt to rebut an argument that Arnold's HIP process could not be used with the PTFE of AAP A. Ans. 7. Logethetis teaches using a HIP treatment in forming a composite substrate of PTFE, glass, and ceramic. Logethetis 6:8-10. Logethetis also teaches that "[a] preferable method for bonding PTFE composite substrate layers is fusion bonding" and teaches accomplishing fusion bonding in an autoclave or hydraulic press by heating the substrate layers while applying isostatic pressure (i.e., HIP). Id. 6:31-33, 39-43. Although Logethetis evidences that HIP treatment can be used with PTFE to fusion bond the PTFE to layers of some materials, such as glass and ceramic, to produce a composite substrate, this does not cure the deficiency in the combination of AAP A and Arnold. The Examiner does not adequately explain why a person having ordinary skill in the art would have been prompted, in view of AAP A and Arnold, and the knowledge that PTFE 6 Appeal2018-003367 Application 14/093,773 can be bonded to some materials using PTFE, to use HIP treatment in the AAPA process, in place of the FLUTECÂ® technology, to coat the PTFE to a razor blade edge. See Arnold 20:29-31 ( emphasizing the need to select substrate and coating materials based on their compatibility with one another). For the above reasons, the Examiner does not establish that the subject matter of claims 1-7 would have been obvious. Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 1-7 as unpatentable over AAPA and Arnold. DECISION The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-7 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over AAPA and Arnold is reversed. For the reasons discussed above, we decline to reach the provisional obviousness-type double patenting rejection. REVERSED 7