Aerojet Rocketdyne, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Oct 20, 2021

2020005726 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 20, 2021)

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.
15/506,447 02/24/2017 Clarence Husband AR100078;
67397-509PUS1
5842
116344 7590 10/20/2021
Joel G Landau
Aerojet Rocketdyne
PO Box 7922
RLB70
Canoga Park, CA 91304
EXAMINER
BURKHART, ELIZABETH A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1715
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/20/2021 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):
joel.landau@rocket.com
nicole.holieway@rocket.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte CLARENCE HUSBAND, JULIE WENDLBERGER,
SEAN BRUSHWOOD, DANIEL DOLL, and ROBERT O’CONNOR
Appeal 2020-005726
Application 15/506,447
Technology Center 1700
Before CATHERINE Q. TIMM, KAREN M. HASTINGS, and
DONNA M. PRAISS, Administrative Patent Judges.

HASTINGS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 5, 7–15, and 17–20.2 See Final Act.
1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant
identifies the real party in interest as Aerojet Rocketdyne, Inc. Appeal Br. 1.
2 Claim 16 was cancelled in the Response after Final filed by Appellant
(Feb. 7, 2020), which was entered by the Examiner (Advisory Action mailed
Mar. 2, 2020).
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The invention is directed to a method of making an additive, for
example, a solid energetic material (i.e., rocket fuel). Spec. ¶¶ 2, 26. Claim
1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter (emphasis
added to highlight key disputed limitation):
1. An additive manufacturing process comprising:
pressurizing and heating a slurry including polymeric
particles and solid energetic material particles to a temperature
that is equal to or greater than a cure temperature of the slurry
in one of (1) a heating block adjacent to and upstream of a
nozzle and (2) the nozzle;
flowing the pressurized heated slurry through the nozzle;
commencing a solvation of the polymeric particles of the
slurry during the heating to initiate curing and hardening of the
slurry; and
depositing the slurry in a predetermined pattern.

Independent claim 14 is similarly directed to an additive
manufacturing process (Appeal Br. Claims App. 7).
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
Godfrey US 3,290,190 Dec. 6, 1966
Schumacher US 5,218,166 June 8, 1993
Fuller US 2013/0042596 A1 Feb. 21, 2013
REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 5, 7–15, and 17–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over the combined prior art of Fuller, Schumacher, and
Godfrey. Final Act. 3; Ans. 6.

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OPINION
We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellant and in light of the arguments and evidence produced
thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential),
(cited with approval in In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2011)
(“[I]t has long been the Board’s practice to require an applicant to identify
the alleged error in the examiner’s rejections . . . .”)). After considering the
evidence presented in this Appeal and each of Appellant’s arguments, we are
not persuaded that Appellant identifies reversible error in any of the
rejections on appeal. Thus, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection for the
reasons expressed in the Final Office Action and the Answer.
We add the following for emphasis.
It has been established that “the [obviousness] analysis need not seek
out precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged
claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a
person of ordinary skill in the art would employ.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex
Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007); see also In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1264–
65 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (a reference stands for all of the specific teachings
thereof as well as the inferences one of ordinary skill in the art would have
reasonably been expected to draw therefrom).
There is no dispute that each of the applied references pertains to
methods for making rocket fuel. Fuller describes a process that is similar to
that claimed except that Fuller deposits rocket motor fuel grains through a
pressurized heated nozzle system rather than a slurry that contains polymeric
particles and solid energetic particles (i.e., fuel particles) (Ans. 3; Fuller
¶¶ 58–60, 77). Appellant argues that 1) Fuller does not teach to flow a
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slurry in a manner that commences solvation of polymeric particles (Appeal
Br. 4), 2) Schumacher merely teaches a fuel slurry and lacks a nozzle or
heating block (id.), and 3) Godfrey teaches away from the proposed
combination because its fuel mixture is cooled before being injected into a
mold or extruded (id.; Reply Br. 2).
Appellant’s arguments are not persuasive of reversible error in the
Examiner’s obviousness determination as they do not take into account the
breadth of the claim language, the applied prior art as a whole, the
knowledge of those of ordinary skill in the art, and the inferences that one of
ordinary skill would have made (See Ans., generally).
Contrary to Appellant’s arguments, we agree with the Examiner that
Godfrey does not teach away from the proposed combination (e.g., Ans. 6–
7). It is well established that a prior art reference must be considered in its
entirety, i.e., as a whole, when determining if it would lead one of ordinary
skill in the art away from the claimed invention. W.L. Gore & Assoc., Inc. v.
Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1550 (Fed. Cir. 1983); In re Harris, 409 F.3d
1339, 1341 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (whether a reference teaches away from a
claimed invention is a question of fact). There is no doubt that one of
ordinary skill would have readily inferred from the overall teachings of the
applied prior art that rocket fuel processing may use either pressurized solid
fuel component particles (Fuller) or a slurry of polymeric particles and solid
energetic particles (Schumacher and Godfrey) that are heated and formed
into larger fuel shapes. Thus, an artisan of ordinary skill would have
weighed the known advantages and disadvantages of processing either a
slurry of solid fuel particles and polymeric particles as recited or the solid
fuel particles of Fuller, as these are both known alternatives. “The fact that
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the motivating benefit comes at the expense of another benefit, however,
should not nullify its use as a basis to modify the disclosure of one reference
with the teachings of another. Instead, the benefits, both lost and gained,
should be weighed against one another.” Winner Int’l Royalty Corp. v.
Wang, 202 F.3d 1340, 1349 n.8 (Fed. Cir. 2000). Also, cf. In re Mouttet,
686 F.3d 1322, 1334 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (“[J]ust because better alternatives
exist in the prior art does not mean that an inferior combination is inapt for
obviousness purposes.”).
Indeed, the Examiner merely relied upon Godfrey to exemplify that
when one heats a slurry of polymeric particles and fuel particles, solvation of
the polymeric particles will commence to initiate curing. The use of
Schumacher’s polymeric and fuel containing slurry as a known alternative
processing stream for making larger fuel shapes to Fuller’s exemplified fuel
materials would have been prima facie obvious (e.g., Ans. 6; Fuller ¶ 56).
Indeed, one of ordinary skill would have readily appreciated that
pressurizing and heating a slurry containing polymeric particles in Fuller’s
process would have resulted in solvation of the polymeric particles as taught
in Schumacher, even without reliance on Godfrey (Schumacher, e.g., Fig. 1,
col. 4, l. 63 to col. 5, l. 10). Godfrey is merely relied upon to exemplify that
the solvation of polymeric particles via heating “to initiate”3 curing as
recited in claims 1 and 14 was known (e.g., Ans. 6; Final Act. 4–5).
In summary, Appellant has not shown that using a slurry as
exemplified in Schumacher/Godfrey in the Fuller process would have been
beyond the capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art based on the

3 Since no specific degree of curing is required by the claim, “to initiate”
curing encompasses any heating that results in solvation.
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applied prior art. We “take account of the inferences and creative steps that
a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ,” and find that a person of
ordinary skill in the art would have overcome any difficulties within their
level of skill. KSR, 550 U.S. at 418; see also id. at 421 (“A person of
ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.”);
Ball Aerosol & Specialty Container, Inc. v. Limited Brands, Inc., 555 F.3d
984, 993 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (under the flexible inquiry set forth by the
Supreme Court, the PTO must take account of the “inferences and creative
steps,” as well as routine steps, that an ordinary artisan would employ). We
further note that “[t]he test for obviousness is not whether the features of a
secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the
primary reference . . . . Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of
[those] references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.”
In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981).
Appellant does not present any arguments specific to any of the
dependent claims.
In light of these circumstances, we sustain all of the Examiner’s
rejection on appeal.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s rejection is AFFIRMED.

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DECISION SUMMARY
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 5, 7–15,
17–20
103 Fuller,
Schumacher,
Godfrey
1, 5, 7–15,
17–20

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). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED