Ex Parte Yalin et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 14, 2017

12103826 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 14, 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.
12/103,826 04/16/2008 Qiu Yalin 1192/0105PUS1 2727
60601 7590 09/15/2017
Muncy, Geissler, Olds & Lowe, P.C.
4000 Legato Road
Suite 310
FAIRFAX, VA 22033
EXAMINER
LEO, LEONARD R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3744
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/15/2017 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 QIU YALIN, WU YONGQUING,
CAO JIANYING, and LUO ZHONG
____________________

Appeal 2016-000878
Application 12/103,826
Technology Center 3700
____________________

Before JOHN C. KERINS, KEN B. BARRETT, and LEE L. STEPINA,
Administrative Patent Judges.

KERINS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Qiu Yalin et al. (Appellants) appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a
final rejection of claims 1–10, 14–21, and 26–30. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

Appeal 2016-000878
Application 12/103,826

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THE INVENTION
Appellants’ invention is directed to a finned tube for use in a heat
exchange apparatus. Spec., para. 1. Claim 2, reproduced below, is
illustrative:
2. A finned tube comprising:

a tube body having an outer surface;

at least one fin extending helically from the tube body outer
surface such that adjacent fin sections of the at least one fin
define a channel having a channel center, where the fin is
monolithic with the tube body, and the fin includes a fin side
wall, a fin top, and a fin base;

a wing received between the fin top and the fin base, the wing
extending from the fin side wall, where the wing includes a wing
side surface and a wing upper surface, and wherein the wing has
a wing base at a circumferentially extending line where the wing
upper surface connects to the fin side wall;

a shelf wall angling upward from the wing and extending towards
the fin top from the wing side surface, the shelf wall connected
to the fin side wall and the wing side surface.

REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejects:
(i) claims 2, 3, 9, 10, 14–17, 21, and 26–29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Chiang (US 5,203,404, issued Apr. 20, 1993) in
view of Schuez (US 5,775,411, issued July 7, 1998);
(ii) claims 4–6 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over Chiang in view of Schuez and Cao (CN 101004335 A, published July
25, 2007);
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Application 12/103,826

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(iii) claims 7, 8, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Chiang in view of Schuez and Lu (US 2007/0034361 A1,
published Feb. 15, 2007); and
(iv) claims 1 and 30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over Chiang in view of Schuez, Cao, and Lu.
OPINION
Claims 2, 3, 9, 10, 14–17, 21, and 26–29--Chiang in view of Schuez
The Examiner finds that Chiang discloses a finned tube having all
claimed features recited in claim 2, with the exception of a wing base
located at a circumferentially extending line where a wing upper surface
connects to a fin side wall. Final Act. 2. The Examiner turns to Schuez,
finding that Schuez discloses a finned tube having “wing 5 ha[ving] a wing
base at a circumferentially extending line where the wing upper surface
connects to the fin side wall.” Id. at 4, citing to Schuez, Figs. 2, 5, 6a. The
Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious, given the disclosure in
the Abstract of Schuez that the fin configuration (constant fin height, fin
flanks having spaced apart depressions) is designed to improve condensation
performance, to modify Chiang such that the Chiang fins have a wing base
at a circumferentially extending line where the wing upper surface connects
to the fin side wall. Id. at 4.
Responding to various challenges by Appellants to this rejection, the
Examiner relies on the fact that the tube fins in both Chiang and Schuez are
formed in rolling operations, taking the position that Chiang is formed to
have wings 24 and notches 23 through fin 22, and Schuez is formed to have
wings 5 without notching fin 2. Ans. 9. The Examiner maintains that, in
such rolling deformation processes, material needs to be displaced, and,
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Application 12/103,826

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accordingly, not only does Chiang have wings formed of displaced material,
but Schuez also “discloses the similarly formed wings 5 can have displaced
material in the form of cantilevering.” Id. (emphasis omitted). The
Examiner then further explains the proposed modification of Chiang as
involving the employment of a helical fin having a constant fin height
throughout (not notched as disclosed) in accordance with the teachings of
Schuez, and that “structure 5 of Schuez . . . is a ‘wing,’ since cantilevering
of excess fin material of the base thereof into the center channel between
adjacent fins can occur,” and “[d]epending on the ductility of the fin
material, the cantilevering may be great or small.” Id.
The Examiner goes to even greater lengths to explain the proposed
modification and the allegedly obvious reason therefor. The Examiner’s
proposed modification of Chiang in view of Schuez “preserves the plurality
of wings 24 of Chiang . . . protruding or cantilevering into the center channel
between adjacent fins 22, while precluding the formation of the notch 23 in
the sidewall of the fin 22 as taught by Schuez . . . for improving
condensation performance,” as a result of the fin having a constant height.
Ans. 10.
Appellants first maintain that the Examiner’s characterization of
depressions 5 in the Schuez fins as “wings” is not proper, in that persons of
ordinary skill in the art would not regard them as such. Reply Br. 5.
Responding to the Examiner’s reasoning, in which Schuez reference
numeral 5 is used to refer more generally to the region in which the
depression is formed, and that the area includes a “wing” due to the
possibility that cantilevering of excess fin material can occur, Appellants
assert that the mere mention of a possibility of cantilevering in Schuez,
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Application 12/103,826

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without more, fails to render the claimed configuration obvious, and fails to
provide motivation to modify Chiang in the manner proposed by the
Examiner, i.e., to include the Schuez depressions and full fin height (thereby
omitting notches 23) and to still have wings 24 as disclosed in Chiang. Id. at
5–6.
The reason that Chiang forms wings/notches in its fins is to increase
the outer surface area of the tube, the fins being the outer exposed surface of
the tube, and to provide a particular notched configuration to promote
drainage of condensing refrigerant from the fins into the grooves between
the fins. Chiang, col. 1, ll. 60–col. 2, l. 3. Schuez, while acknowledging the
improvement in heat transfer generally resulting from providing fins to
increase the surface area of the heat transfer surface, eschews certain prior
art fin configurations that, while increasing surface area, resulted in portions
of adjacent fins being positioned too closely together, with Schuez noting
that condensate may be restricted from moving (held back, retained) in such
constructions. Schuez, col. 1, l. 66–col. 2, l. 12. The Schuez fin
configuration is instead premised on creating convex edge lengths that are as
large as possible (by forming depressions in the fin walls), while
maintaining sufficiently large distances between the individual fins, so as to
reduce condensate hold back. Id. at col. 2, ll. 15–18.
Schuez is seen as recognizing that there are competing considerations
in obtaining more efficient heat transfer, which involve not only increasing
heat transfer, but also improving the condensate-shedding characteristics of
the tube outer surface. Chiang, for its part, teaches one skilled in the art that
the notch configuration improves the condensate-shedding characteristics of
the fins, and, at the same time, provides an increased heat transfer surface
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area. It does so, however, by decreasing the distance between adjacent fins,
with its “wings,” formed as a result of the notching, extending laterally to
the point of potentially meeting midway between the fins. Chiang, col. 3, ll.
3–16. Overall, the rejection appears to be attempting to combine aspects of
two different design approaches to improving heat transfer efficiency of heat
exchanger tubes.
To that end, the Examiner does not, and is likely unable to, based on
the level of detail of the disclosures, address what efficiencies are gained by
retaining the entire fin at a constant height, as in Schuez, as compared with
notching the fin, and obtaining the benefits espoused in Chiang. As such,
the proposed modification does not appear to be well founded from the
standpoint of a person of ordinary skill in the art reasonably expecting
success in obtaining improved condensation performance. It is also
reasonably clear that Schuez would prefer to not have any cantilevering that
would encroach upon the space between two adjacent fins, while also
recognizing that such cantilevering might not be avoidable in certain
instances. In this regard, as well, the person of ordinary skill in the art
would not reasonably expect success in obtaining improved condensation
performance in the structure resulting from the proposed modification, over
that provided by Chiang.
Thus, although it seems possible that a person of ordinary skill in the
art might be able to select, for example, fin dimensions, material, density of
material, and appropriately configured rolling disks, that would allow the
manufacture of a finned tube that “preserves the plurality of wings 24 of
Chiang . . . protruding or cantilevering into the center channel between
adjacent fins 22, while precluding the formation of the notch 23 in the
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sidewall of the fin 22 as taught by Schuez” (Ans. 10), the assertion that this
would improve the condensation performance of Chiang, or Schuez, for that
matter, appears to be speculative at best. We note, in this regard, that the
disclosure in Schuez of improved condensation performance appears to not
be in comparison to Chiang or another finned tube that includes wings of the
type shown in Chiang, but rather in comparison to “a nonstructured fin tube
with the same dimensions” as the exemplary tube in Schuez. Schuez, col. 5,
ll. 6–17.
In that the articulated reason to modify Chiang in view of the
teachings in Schuez is not adequately supported by rational underpinnings,
the rejection of independent claim 2 as being unpatentable over these
references is not sustained. Independent claim 14 includes essentially the
same limitation directed to the wing base that requires Chiang to be
modified in order to meet the limitation. As such, the rejection of claim 14
is also not sustained. Each of claims 3, 9, 10, 15–17, 21, and 26–29, also
subject to this rejection, depends from either claim 2 or 14. The rejection of
those claims is also not sustained.

Claims 4–6 and 18--Chiang/Schuez/Cao
The Examiner does not rely on Cao in any manner that remedies the
deficiencies in the combination of Chiang and Schuez, discussed above.
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Accordingly, the rejection of claims 4–6 and 18 as being unpatentable over
Chiang, Schuez, and Cao, is not sustained.

Claims 7, 8, 19, and 20--Chiang/Schuez/Lu
The Examiner does not rely on Lu in any manner that remedies the
deficiencies in the combination of Chiang and Schuez, discussed above.
Accordingly, the rejection of claims 7, 8, 19, and 20 as being unpatentable
over Chiang, Schuez, and Lu, is not sustained.

Claims 1 and 30--Chiang/Schuez/Cao/Lu
The Examiner does not rely on Cao or Lu in any manner that remedies
the deficiencies in the combination of Chiang and Schuez, discussed above.
Accordingly, the rejection of claims 1 and 30 as being unpatentable over
Chiang, Schuez, Cao, and Lu is not sustained.

DECISION
The rejections of claims 1–10, 14–21, and 26–30 are reversed.

REVERSED