Ex Parte Derby et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 22, 2013

11622032 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 22, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte HARRY L. DERBY V and BRYAN E. HOLBY
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Appeal 2012-000482
Application 11/622,032
Technology Center 3600
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Before LYNNE H. BROWNE, PATRICK R. SCANLON, and
ANNETTE R. REIMERS, Administrative Patent Judges.

SCANLON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s
decision rejecting claims 1-16. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
THE INVENTION
Appellants’ invention relates to “a greens mower having an internal
combustion engine traction drive and an electric cutting unit drive.” Spec.,
para. [0002]. Claims 1, 7, and 10 are the independent claims on appeal.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter.
1. A mower, comprising:
a frame;
a lawn roller mounted to the frame;
an engine mounted on the frame for
outputting a driving force to the lawn roller;
a mechanism for generating electrical power
operatively coupled with said engine;
a mowing unit operably connected to the
frame and including a reel having a plurality of
cutting blades in cutting relationship with a bed
knife;
an electric motor supported by the mowing
unit for driving the reel, said electric motor
operatively coupled with said mechanism for
generating electrical power;
a controller electrically coupled to the
electric motor;
a plurality of ground engaging rollers
coupled to the mowing unit; and
a sensor associated with at least one of the
lawn roller and the ground engaging rollers for
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directly detecting rotational speed of the lawn
roller or ground engaging roller, said sensor
outputs a detected rotational speed signal that
indicates the rotational speed of the lawn roller or
ground engaging rollers to the controller for
calculating the drive speed of the mower.
REFERENCES
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art references:
Hansen
Strubbe
Lonn
Lane
Short
Wakitani
US 3,085,385
US 5,015,997
US 5,394,678
US 6,094,896
US 2002/0184865 A1
US 6,734,647 B2
Apr. 16, 1963
May 14, 1991
Mar. 7, 1995
Aug. 1, 2000
Dec. 12, 2002
May 11, 2004
REJECTIONS
The following rejections are before us on appeal:
I. Claims 1, 2, 7, 10, and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lonn, Hansen, and Strubbe.
II. Claim 3 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Lonn, Hansen, Strubbe, and Lane.
III. Claims 4-6, 14, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Lonn, Hansen, Strubbe, and Wakitani.
IV. Claims 8, 9, 12, 13, and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lonn, Hansen, Strubbe, and Short.
ANALYSIS
Rejection I
Appellants argue claims 1, 2, 7, 10, and 11 as a group. App. Br. 5-9.
We take claim 1 as representative pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii)
(2011), and claims 2, 7, 10, and 11 stand or fall with claim 1.
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The Examiner finds that Lonn discloses a mower that comprises, inter
alia, a mowing unit including a reel (one of cutting reels 48, 50, 52) and a
hydraulic motor (71-73) for driving the reel. Ans. 4. The Examiner also
finds that Lonn further discloses that an electric motor may be used to drive
the reels but does not disclose a mechanism for generating electrical power,
an electric motor supported by the mowing unit for driving the reel, and a
sensor as recited in claim 1. Ans. 5. The Examiner finds that Hansen
discloses a “mower including a mechanism (69) generating electrical power”
and “an electric motor (44) supported by the mowing unit (10) for driving
the reel (15, 16)” and that “Strubbe discloses an agricultural vehicle
including a sensor (S14) associated with the ground engaging rollers (3) for
directly detecting rotational speed (an rpm counter) of the ground engaging
rollers (3),” with the outputted signal being used by a controller to calculate
drive speed. Ans. 5-6.
Based on these disclosures, the Examiner concludes that it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to substitute Hansen’s electric
motor drive in place of Lonn’s hydraulic motor drive in light of both Hansen
and Lonn “teaching that hydraulic and electrical mower drive systems are
interchangeable.” Ans. 6. The Examiner further concludes that it would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art “to include the sensor of
Strubbe on the mower of Lonn et al. in order to sense and indicate a ground
speed of the vehicle.” Id.
Appellants argue that Lonn “illustrates a transmission speed sensor
that is mounted inside of a housing in the transmission” and does not
“remotely illustrate the problem solved by Appellants’ claim.” App. Br. 5-6.
Appellants further assert that “the Examiner has failed to illustrate how one
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skilled in the art would substitute the external sensor of the Strubbe grain
harvester for the internal transmission speed sensor of Lonn.” Reply Br. 2.
These arguments are not persuasive. The Examiner has not proposed
to replace the “internal transmission speed sensor” of Lonn with the sensor
disclosed by Strubbe. Rather, as noted supra, the Examiner concludes it
would have been obvious to include a sensor associated with the ground
engaging rollers to determine the mower’s ground speed. Appellants do not
specify where Lonn discloses “a transmission speed sensor that is mounted
inside of a housing in the transmission,” but appear to be referring to lines
18-34 in column 10 of Lonn, which describe a quadrature decoder 104
(which is part of controller 100) that receives input from filter and protection
circuitry 103 to determine speed. Whether or not this disclosure “illustrates
the problem solved by Appellants’ claim” has no bearing on the
modification proposed by the Examiner.
Appellants also argue that “Strubbe indicates that the RPM sensor is
utilized to determine the hectares per hour so that it can determine the
amount of actual grain loss in terms of either percentages or total yield or
total weight per unit of surface” and the sensor of Strubbe “does not directly
detect the rotational speed as claimed by Appellants.” App. Br. 6 (citing
Strubbe, col. 12, ll. 10-14). However, while the portion of Stubbe cited by
Appellants describes deriving harvesting speed or capacity “from the rpm
readings from the rpm sensor S14” in determining an indication of actual
grain losses, Appellants are overlooking the fact that Strubbe discloses that
the sensor S14 is associated with one of the wheels 3 to produce signals
representing the vehicle’s ground speed. Strubbe, col. 9, ll. 33-40, 51-53.
As the Examiner correctly points out, the fact that Strubbe subsequently uses
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the detected ground speed to determine grain loss does not diminish the
teaching of using the sensor S14 to detect ground speed. See Ans. 10.
Moreover, by sensing RPMs, or revolutions per minute, Strubbe’s sensor
S14 directly detects the rotational speed, contrary to Appellants’ assertion.
We also disagree with Appellants’ argument that the Examiner has
failed to provide any explicit reasoning as to why Strubbe and Hansen are
combined with Lonn or a sufficient rational underpinning or factual basis to
support the combination. App. Br. 7; Reply Br. 2. As noted supra, the
Examiner’s rationale for combining Lonn and Hansen in the manner
proposed is that both references disclose that hydraulic and electric motors
“are interchangeable” in mower drive systems. Thus, the Examiner’s
modification of Lonn is the simple substitution of one known element for
another (i.e., an electric motor for a hydraulic motor) that produces
predictable results. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416
(2007) (“when a patent claims a structure already known in the prior art that
is altered by the mere substitution of one element for another known in the
field, the combination must do more than yield a predictable result”). As
such, the Examiner does not rely on a mere conclusory statement but
articulates adequate reasoning based on rational underpinnings to explain
why one of ordinary skill in the art would have been led to make the
proposed modification.
Similarly, the Examiner’s rationale for combining Lonn and Strubbe
is not merely conclusory. Instead, the Examiner again supports the proposed
modification by articulating adequate reasoning based on rational
underpinnings (i.e., “to sense and indicate a ground speed of the vehicle,” as
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discussed supra). Appellants have not shown that the Examiner’s articulated
reason would be ineffective to support the conclusion of obviousness.
Appellants’ argument that the large electric motor of Hansen “is
incapable of being mounted onto the reel” (App. Br. 7) is also unpersuasive.
The Examiner is not proposing to mount Hansen’s electric motor onto
Lonn’s reel. Rather, Hansen “is used to show that it is known in the art to
electrically power a lawn mower system using a generator (69) driven by an
engine (of tractor T) to power a motor (44) mounted to and for driving a
cutting reel (15, 16).” Ans. 9. The test for obviousness is not whether
features from one reference may be bodily incorporated into another
reference to produce the claimed subject matter but is simply what the
combination of references makes obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981).
Lastly, Appellants’ reliance on Ex parte Janson and Baldwin, Appeal
No. 2010-009939 (BPAI 2010) (Reply Br. 2) is misplaced. In Janson, the
Board concluded that the Examiner failed to articulate how one of ordinary
skill in the art would combine the teachings of two completely different
transmissions: an automatic transmission employing gears and a constant
variable transmission (CVT) employing belts. Janson, p. 4. In contrast, the
Examiner in this case articulates adequate reasoning based on rational
underpinnings to explain why one of ordinary skill in the art would have
been led to make the proposed modifications for the reasons discussed
supra. The facts of Janson are thus distinguishable from the present case.
In view of the above, Appellants’ arguments do not apprise us of
error, and we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 and claims 2, 7, 10,
and 11 grouped therewith.
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Rejections II-IV
Appellants advance no separate arguments in connection with the
rejections of claims 3-6, 8, 9, and 12-16 but instead rely on these claims’
dependency from independent claims 1, 7, and 10 for patentability. App. Br.
9-10; Reply Br. 3. As we find no deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection of
claims 1, 7, and 10 as being obvious over the combination of Lonn, Hansen,
and Strubbe for the reasons discussed supra, we also sustain the rejections of
claims 3-6, 8, 9, and 12-16.
DECISION
We affirm the decision of the Examiner rejecting claims 1-16.
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

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