Ex Parte Diedrick et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 18, 2013

11524865 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 18, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
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.
11/524,865 09/21/2006 Michael G. Diedrick 20153/YOD (ITWO:0130) 9354
7590 10/21/2013
Patrick S. Yoder
FLETCHER YODER
P.O. Box 692289
Houston, TX 77269-2289
EXAMINER
MAYE, AYUB A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3742
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/21/2013 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 MICHAEL G. DIEDRICK, ADAM P. LAABS,
GREGORY C. BAETEN, and MARK E. PETERS
____________

Appeal 2011-011942
Application 11/524,865
Technology Center 3700
____________

Before NEAL E. ABRAMS, MICHAEL L. HOELTER,
and MITCHELL G. WEATHERLY, Administrative Patent Judges.

ABRAMS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Michael E. Diedrick et al. (Appellants) seek our review under 35
U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-28. We have
jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
Appeal 2011-011942
Application 11/524,865

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THE INVENTION
The claimed invention is directed to a portable engine driven welding
system including a generator, a power supply, and a wire feeder.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on
appeal.
1. A welding system comprising:
an engine;
a generator coupled to the engine for generating electrical
power;
a control circuit coupled to the generator for conditioning the
electrical power to power suitable for welding; and
a wire feeder coupled to the control circuit for receiving power
for driving a wire electrode through a supply cable to a
welding torch;
wherein the engine, the generator, the control circuit and the
wire feeder are commonly mounted on a common support.

THE PRIOR ART
The Examiner relied upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Renner US 6,121,691 Sep. 19, 2000
Stava US 6,924,460 B1 Aug. 2, 2005
Leinser US 7,211,764 B2 May 1, 2007

THE REJECTION
Claims 1-28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103a) as being
unpatentable over Leinser, Stava and Renner.

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OPINION
The Examiner has found all of the subject matter recited in claim 1 to
be disclosed in Leinser, except for the presence of a wire feeder and the
requirement that all of the components of the welding system be commonly
mounted on a common support. Ans. 7. However, the Examiner determines
that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide
the Leinser welding system with a wire feeder and a wire feed control
system in view of the teachings of Stava, and to commonly mount the
components on a common support, in view of the teachings of Stava and
Renner. Ans. 7-8.
Appellants argue that the combined teachings of the references fail to
teach or suggest a welding system wherein the engine, generator, control
circuit and the wire feeder are commonly mounted on a common support.
App. Br. 8-11; Reply Br. 2-3. Appellants also argue that the Examiner “has
not shown objective evidence of the requisite motivation or suggestion to
modify or combine Leinser and Stava to reach the present claims” (App. Br.
11-12), or for combining Leinser and Renner (App. Br. 12-13).
Leinser is directed to a welding device comprising an engine 102, a
generator 106, and welding components 110. Col. 4, ll. 8-18; Fig. 2.
According to Leinser, “[e]xamples of weld processes that may be
implemented include stick welding, gas metal arc welding, tungsten inert gas
welding, air-carbon arc welding, and various wire feed processes.” Col. 3,
ll. 28-31 (emphasis added). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been
taught by this recitation that the Leinser welding system is capable of
performing welding processes in which wire is fed to the welding nozzle
Appeal 2011-011942
Application 11/524,865

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and, it follows, that in such cases means for feeding the wire must be
provided.
Stava discloses a welding system that includes an electric arc welder
10, a generator 100, an engine 110, a welding nozzle 40, and a wire feeder
70 that provides a consumable electrode, such as a solid wire, during the
welding process, and controls its feed rate. Col. 7, ll. 46-65; Fig. 1. In view
of this teaching, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious
to provide the Leinser welding system with a wire feeder and a wire feeder
control as expressly taught by Stava for the purpose of facilitating the
performance of the disclosed wire welding processes because wire feeders
and feed rate controls were known in the welding system art and do no more
than yield the predictable result of feeding the wire during a wire welding
process. In this regard, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to
known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield
predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Such is itself sufficient reasoning with rationale underpinnings to support a
finding of obviousness.
Leinser also describes the disclosed welding device as “a portable
engine-driven welder/generator system 10” (col. 2, ll. 26-57 (emphasis
added)), which has an “an outer housing 12” (col. 3, l. 10), the upper surface
of which “includes a lifting hook 22 . . . for lifting and transporting of the
welding device” (col. 3, ll. 12-14 (emphasis added)). It is our opinion that
one of ordinary skill in the art would understand from these statements and
the showing in Figure 1 that the components of the Leinser welder “are
commonly mounted on a common support,” as required by Appellants’
claim 1, in order to allow the components and the housing in which they are
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Application 11/524,865

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located to be picked up by a lifting hook and transported, and that such also
would apply to the Leinser welder as modified by the addition of a wire
feeder and control. Support for this conclusion is found in Stava, which
teaches that “[t]he engine welder illustrated in FIG. 1 [which includes a wire
feeder] is typically a self-contained, portable and fully integrated
welder/generator. The engine welder typically includes a housing, not
shown, that is designed to encase at least a portion of the internal
components of the engine welder” (col. 8, ll. 5-9 (emphasis added)), and that
the welder “can be transported by a welding carriage” (col. 2, l. 47).
Further support is provided by Renner, whose background of the
invention portion teaches that the components of welding systems, including
“an engine, a generator, a welding power source, often a wire feeder, and
one or more controllers . . . may be sold as a group, a single unit or
individually.” Col. 1, ll. 11-15. We view Renner’s teaching that the
components may be sold as a “single unit”1 as being confirmatory of the
teachings of Leinser and Stava that it would have been obvious to commonly
mount such a “unit” on a common support.
Therefore, while we have carefully considered all of the arguments set
forth by Appellants in the Appeal Brief and the Reply Brief, we are not
persuaded that the combined teachings of the references relied upon by the
Examiner fail to render the subject matter recited in claim 1 obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art. This being the case, the rejection of independent
claim 1 is sustained. And, because Appellants have not separately argued

1 Any group of things regarded as an entity. See, for example,
www.Dictionary.com
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Application 11/524,865

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the patentability of any of the remaining claims (App. Br. 10), the like
rejection of claims 2-28 also is sustained.

DECISION
The rejection 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).

AFFIRMED

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