Ex Parte Chen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 29, 2016

13358957 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 29, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/358,957 01/26/2012
22879 7590 05/03/2016
HP Inc,
3390 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 35
FORT COLLINS, CO 80528-9544
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Fu-Yi Chen
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.
82858783 6968
EXAMINER
HOFFBERG,ROBERTJOSEPH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2835
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/03/2016 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):
ipa.mail@hp.com
barbl@hp.com
yvonne.bailey@hp.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte FU-YI CHEN and TSU YU LI 1
Appeal2014-007479
Application 13/358,957
Technology Center 2800
Before MICHAEL P. COLAIANNI, CHRISTOPHER L. OGDEN, and
CHRISTOPHER C. KENNEDY, Administrative Patent Judges.
OGDEN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's final
decision rejecting claims 1-20 in the above-identified application. We have
jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We AFFIRM.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Hewlett-Packard
Development Company, LP, which is a wholly-owned affiliate of Hewlett-
Packard Company, and which has a general or managing partner HPQ
Holdings, LLC. Appeal Br. 2.
Appeal2014-007479
Application 13/358,957
BACKGROUND
Appellants' invention relates to thermal control using an add-on
module. See Spec. Title. Independent claim 1 is representative:
1. A system, comprising:
a processor connected to a circuit device that includes
electrical connections to other components;
a base cooling plate disposed adjacent to the processor
and connected to a thermal energy transport element;
and
an add-on module in contact with the base cooling plate
when the cooling capacity of the base cooling plate is
exceeded by a rating of the processor.
Appeal Br. 15 (emphasis added). Claims 8 and 14 are also independent. Id.
at 16-17.
The Examiner maintains the following grounds of rejection:
I. Claims 1, 3, 4, 7-10, 13-15, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
being anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 6,532,141 Bl [hereinafter Wu] (issued
Mar. 11, 2003). Final Action 5-7.
II. Claims 2, 9, and 16-19 as unpatentable over Wu. Final Action 7-
11.
III. Claims 5 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Wu and U.S. Patent No. 6,560,104 B2 [hereinafter DeHoffJ (issued May 6,
2003). Final Action 11-12.
IV. Claims 6 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Wu and U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2011/0310557 Al [hereinafter Ooe] (published
Dec. 22, 2011). Final Action 12-13.
Regarding rejection (I), Appellants' arguments focus solely on claims
1, 8, and 14. See Appeal Br. 7-10. Regarding rejection (II), Appellants
reiterate and rely on the same arguments for rejection (I), noting that claims
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Appeal2014-007479
Application 13/358,957
2, 9, and 16-19 depend from claims 1, 8, and 14. See id. at 10-11.
Regarding rejection (III), Appellants reiterate and rely on the same
arguments for rejection (I), noting that claims 5 and 11 are dependent
claims. See id. at 11-12. Regarding rejection (IV), Appellants reiterate and
rely on the same arguments for rejection (I), noting that claims 6 and 12 are
dependent claims. See id. at 11-12. Therefore, consistent with the
provisions of 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2013), we limit our discussion to
claims 1, 8, and 14, and that discussion controls the outcome for all other
claims on appeal.
DISCUSSION
The Examiner finds that Wu discloses all the limitations of claims 1,
8, and 14. See Final Action 5-6. In particular, the Examiner finds that Wu
discloses "an add-on module (30) in contact with the base cooling plate
when the cooling capacity of the base cooling plate is exceeded by a rating
of the processor." Id. at 5 (citing Wu 5:7-8); see also Answer 3-5 (citing
Wu 1:12-15, 27-30, 44--50, 61---65, 5:5-8, 17-23). The Examiner interprets
the phrase a rating of the processor to mean "a characteristic of the
processor that is controlled by a user in designing the processor." Id. at 5---6.
The Examiner further interprets the claims as requiring that
Id.
the base cooling plate is insufficient to maintain the
processor at the maximum operating temperature while
operating at the maximum rated power, therefore
additional cooling capacity is needed by the add-on
module in order to maintain the processor at or below the
maximum temperature when running at the rated power
of the processor.
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Appeal2014-007479
Application 13/358,957
Appellants argue that "nothing in Wu discloses that the plurality of
heat-dissipating blocks are utilized when the cooling capacity of the main
body and the heat pipe is exceeded by the rating of the electronic
component, as generally recited by the present claims." Appeal Br. 7.
Specifically, Appellants argue that Wu discloses neither a cooling capacity
of a base cooling plate, nor a rating for the electronic component. Id.
Moreover, Appellants argue that Wu merely teaches that the addition of
heat-dissipating blocks is "for efficiency or to merely increase heat
dissipation, or for other reasons, and not in an effort to meet the rating." Id.
at 8. According to Appellants, use of a cooling block for "sufficient heat
dissipation," as Appellants characterize the disclosure of Wu, "may depend
on overall system configuration and operation, among other issues, and not
the 'rating' of the thermal energy generating device." Id. at 10. Appellants
argue that "the Wu main body and heat body having a cooling capacity less
than the rating of a processor in the system is not necessarily present in Wu,
as would be required to support an assertion of inherency." Id. at 8-9.
The conditional limitation of claims 1, 8, and 14 requires that the add-
on module is in contact with the base cooling plate "when the cooling
capacity of the base cooling plate is exceeded by a rating" of the processor
or thermal energy generating device (claims 1 and 4), or equivalently, "when
the thermal energy generating device is rated higher than the cooling
capacity of the base cooling plate" (claim 8). Appeal Br. 15-1 7 (emphasis
added). In other words, the conditional limitations in claims 1, 8, and 14
each require that if the device rating is greater than the cooling capacity of
the base plate, then an add-on module is in contact with the base cooling
plate.
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Appeal2014-007479
Application 13/358,957
Appellants' arguments do not persuade us that the Examiner erred in
finding that Wu discloses a thermal energy generating device, such as a
processor, in which the conditional limitation of claims 1, 8, and 14 is met.
Wu discloses upgraded electronic components in which "the original module
for heat dissipation will be insufficient to efficiently dissipate the heat
generated from the electronic components," Wu 1:27-29, and therefore,
continued use of the original module will result in "the overheat problem,
which results in ... component damage or life span reduction," id. at 1 :37-
38. Wu's disclosure expects components to potentially operate at their "full
load," see id. at 1: 14--16, and presents the disclosed invention as a way "to
fulfill the heat dissipation requirement for the electronic component," id. at
5:22-23.
Thus, Wu clearly discloses a system in which the original cooling
module is insufficient to accommodate the heat dissipation requirements of a
processor operating at its full load. According to the Specification and as
acknowledged by Appellants, the "rating of a [processor] is the amount of
thermal energy, or heat, output by the [processor] under a maximum load or
in response to receiving a maximum amount of power from a power source."
Appeal Br. 9 (quoting Spec. i-f 19). In light of this definition, it is clear that
Wu also discloses a system in which the rating of the processor, representing
the amount of heat generated by the processor at its full load, is greater than
the capacity of the original cooling module. As a consequence of this
imbalance, Wu discloses the use of an add-on module in contact with the
original cooling module (base cooling plate) in order to dissipate the excess
heat resulting from the higher rating of the upgraded component. See Wu
5:4--23.
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Appeal2014-007479
Application 13/358,957
Therefore, Appellants have not persuaded us that the Examiner
reversibly erred in finding that Wu discloses all the limitations of claims 1,
8, and 14. For the above reasons, we determine that the evidence of
anticipation, on balance, outweighs the evidence of nonanticipation relied
upon by Appellants, and we affirm the Examiner's decision to reject claims
1-20.
DECISION
The Examiner's decision is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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