Ex Parte Geisel

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 24, 2017

12528285 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 24, 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.
12/528,285 10/06/2009 Hartmut Geisel 18231.850 1823
134667 7590 02/28/2017
Johnson Marcou & Isaacs, LLC
27 City Square, Suite 1
Hoschton, GA 30548
EXAMINER
HERRING, LISA L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1741
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/28/2017 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):
jstachniak@jmi-iplaw.com
docketing @j mi-iplaw. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte HARTMUT GEISEL
Appeal 2016-001022
Application 12/528,2851
Technology Center 1700
Before KAREN M. HASTINGS, GEORGE C. BEST, and
N. WHITNEY WILSON, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEST, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
The Examiner rejected claims 7, 9, 10, 12, and 13 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious. Final Act. (June 4, 2014). Appellant seeks reversal
ofthese rejections pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). We have jurisdiction.
35 U.S.C. § 6(b). For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM.
1 Heye International GmbH is identified as the real party in interest. Appeal
Br. 3.
Appeal 2016-001022
Application 12/528,285
BACKGROUND
The ’285 Application describes a method and apparatus for
monitoring glass articles produced in a glass molding machine, which has
multiple production units. Spec. Abstract.
Claims 7 and 10 are representative of the ’285 Application’s claims
and are reproduced below:
7. A method of monitoring glass articles that are produced in
a glass molding machine having a plurality of production units,
said method including the steps of:
always conveying the glass articles from the production
units in the same sequence, relative to the production units,
through a conveying stretch;
providing each glass article, as it passes through the
conveying stretch, with a marking having an individual serial
number, wherein assigned to the marking is data related to the
production process of said each glass article;
supplying the glass articles, via the conveying stretch and
in said same sequence, to a continuous annealing oven; and
subsequently subjecting the glass articles to a defect
checking process, wherein the data assigned to the marking
having a respective serial number includes the production unit of
the glass molding machine in which the respective glass article
is produced; the time of production of the glass article; and
measurement data detected during production of the glass article
in the respective production unit.
10. An apparatus for monitoring glass articles in a production
line comprising a glass molding machine that has a plurality of
production units, a continuous cooling or annealing oven having
control devices associated therewith for carrying out a defect
checking process, and a conveyor disposed between said glass
molding machine and said continuous annealing oven, wherein
the glass articles are always disposed on said conveyor in the
same sequence relative to said production unit, said apparatus
further comprising:
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Application 12/528,285
a marking device disposed in a conveying stretch of said
conveyor, upstream of said annealing oven, for providing each
of the glass articles with an individual serial number;
reading devices integrated into said control devices for
reading said serial numbers, wherein said control devices are
disposed downstream of said annealing oven; and
a process computer connected to said marking device and
to said control devices via respective data lines, wherein said
process computer is configured to link transmitted data together
for evaluation purposes, wherein said process computer is
additionally connected to said glass molding machine via a
further data line via which said process computer receives
measured data as functions dependent on time and detected
during the production of the glass articles in the individual
production units, and wherein said process computer links the
measured data with the data already stored.
Appeal Br. 14—15 (Claims App.).
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Appeal 2016-001022
Application 12/528,285
REJECTIONS
On appeal, the Examiner maintains the following rejections:
1. Claims 7 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the combination of Fergusson,2 Iwamoto,3 and
Sakoske.4 Final Act. 2.
2. Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
the combination of Fergusson, Iwamoto, Sakoske, and Richter.5
Final Act. 5.
3. Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Fergusson, Iwamoto, Sakoske, and
Haynes.6 Final Act. 5.
4. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Fergusson, Iwamoto, Sakoske, Haynes,
and Rez.7 Final Act. 8.
DISCUSSION
Appellant argues for the reversal of the rejections of claim 9 and 13
on the basis of limitations present in claim 7. See Appeal Br. 6—11; Reply
2 US 4,004,904, issued Jan. 25, 1977.
3 JP 09128578, published May 16, 1997. We shall follow the Examiner and
Appellant by referring to a machine translation that was made of the record
in this appeal on November 2, 2011.
4 US 2006/0112729 Al, published June 1, 2006.
5 US 2,929,931, issued Mar. 22, 1960.
6 US 4,457,772, issued July 3, 1984.
7 US 2,067,949, issued Jan. 19, 1937.
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Application 12/528,285
Br. 2^4. Appellant separately argues for the reversal of the rejection of
claim 12, but presents no supporting argument. See Appeal Br. 13; Reply
Br. 6. We, therefore, limit our analysis to independent claims 7 and 10 for
the rejections of these claims. Claims 9, 12, and 13 will stand or fall with
each of their respective independent claims. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
Rejection 1 and Rejection 2. We affirm these rejections based upon
the factual findings and reasoning set forth on pages 2—5 of the Final Office
Action and pages 3—8 of the Examiner’s Answer, which we adopt. We add
the following for emphasis.
Appellant argues, inter alia, that the rejections should be reversed
because Appellant’s claimed “process is not provided by any of the methods,
devices or systems of the cited art.” Appeal Br. 7. Appellant asserts that
Fergusson’s marking of glass articles occurs at the oven’s outlet, whereas
claim 7 requires marking before the glass articles enter the oven. Id. at 8.
Appellant argues that Sakoske’s field of automotive glass manufacturing
“differs from that of the subject matter of the present application and
provides no teaching or suggestion” of forming hollow glass articles. Id. at
9; see generally id. at 8—9. Appellant further argues that Iwamoto’s pre­
oven laser marking provides no traceability of production dates, locations, or
the conditions of the manufacturing machinery. Id. at 9. In light of these
differences, Appellant concludes that “the practitioner simply would not be
motivated to combine these references.”8 Id. at 10; see also Reply Br. 2.
8 Appellant requests that we note that the Examiner’s proposed modification
“would change the principle of operation of the prior art.” Appeal Br. 10.
As the Examiner determined, however, Appellant fails to specifically
explain how the proposed modification changes the prior art’s principle of
operation. Adv. Act. 3.
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Application 12/528,285
Appellant’s arguments are unpersuasive because they do not address
the Examiner’s rationale for modifying Fergusson’s method of monitoring
glass article production to incorporate Iwamoto’s pre-oven conveyor belt
marking and Sakoske’s serial number marking. See Final Act. 2^4. Rather,
Appellant’s arguments address whether it was improper for the Examiner to
combine Fergusson with Iwamoto and Sakoske when each reference
discloses different markings and instances when markings are inscribed.
The test for obviousness[, however,] is not whether the features
of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the
structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed
invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the
references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of
the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in
the art.
In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). Appellant’s arguments fail to
identify reversible error in the Examiner’s determination that it would have
been obvious to mark Fergusson’s glass articles: (1) in the conveyor belt 10
pre-oven because Iwamoto teaches that this is a suitable location for marking
glass articles and (2) with a serial number associated with production
process data because Sakoske teaches that this enables manufacturing
traceability and quality control. “A person of ordinary skill is also a person
of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550
U.S. 398, 421 (2007).
For the reasons set forth above, in the Final Office Action, and the
Answer, we are not persuaded by any of Appellant’s arguments for reversal
of the obviousness rejections of claims 7, 9, and 13. We, therefore, affirm
Rejection 1 and Rejection 2.
Rejection 3 and Rejection 4. We affirm these rejections based upon
the factual findings and reasoning set forth on pages 5—9 of the Final Office
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Application 12/528,285
Action and pages 8—10 of the Examiner’s Answer, which we adopt. We add
the following for emphasis.
Appellant’s arguments for reversal of the rejection of claim 10 rely,
inter alia, on the same arguments presented for reversal of the rejection of
claim 7. Appeal Br. 12. For the reasons set forth above, these arguments are
not persuasive.
Appellant further argues that “[njone of the four cited references
defines” the claimed limitations regarding reading devices and a process
computer as required by claim 10. Id. Appellant asserts that Haynes
provides no teaching or suggestion of a device “in which an inspection of the
articles is performed independent of their sequence and still, an exact
documentation including all production dates, is possible.” Id.', see also
Reply Br. 4.9 Appellant’s arguments are not persuasive.
The Examiner provided adequate reasons to combine Fergusson,
Iwamoto, and Sakoske, as relied upon in Rejection 1 and Rejection 2, with
Haynes, another secondary reference, to describe an apparatus for
monitoring glass articles that meets these limitations.
As the Examiner found, Fergusson discloses a defect checking process
downstream of lehr 18 where defective bottles may be separated by
separating device 30, but is silent as to the claimed reading device. Ans. 8—
9 Appellant questions whether the ordinary skilled artisan would modify
Fergusson’s apparatus with Iwamoto’s apparatus when Fergusson’s marking
device is optional. Reply Br. 4. To the extent that Appellant alleges that the
Examiner has provided insufficient motivation to combine the applied prior
art, this argument is untimely because it is raised for the first time in the
Reply Brief. See 37 C.F.R. §§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv), 41.41(b)(2); Ex parte
Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473, 1477 (BPAI 2010) (informative).
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Application 12/528,285
9; see also Final Act. 6 (citing Fergusson claim 1; 3:5—10; 3:15—25). The
Examiner found, however, that Iwamoto teaches a reading device in the
form of CCD camera 21 used in inspection position 52. Final Act. 7 (citing
Iwamoto Fig. 5; 1 8). The Examiner relied upon this subsidiary finding to
determine that a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the
invention would have recognized that modifying Fergusson’s defective
bottle separating means with Iwamoto’s teachings provides “reading devices
integrated into said control devices” as recited in claim 10. Ans. 9.
With respect to the claimed process computer, the Examiner found
Haynes teaches that a computer may be connected to multiple machines in a
glass forming machine process. Final Act. 8 (citing Hayes Abstract; Fig. 1).
The Examiner further found that Fergusson discloses identification system
20, which provides data lines to link transmitted data for evaluation
purposes. Final Act. 6 (citing Fergusson claim 1; 3:5—10; 3:15—25). As the
Examiner determined, to the ordinary skilled artisan,
it would [have] be[en] obvious to provide for a process computer
or computers to be connected to the manufacturing devices of
Fergusson, Sakos[k]e, and Iwamoto with data lines, such as the
claimed marking device, glass molding machines (i.e. [,]
production units), reading device, inspection line (i.e. [,] control
devices), etc., which provides for the claimed process computer
connected to said marking device, control devices and capable of
transmitting data for evaluation purposes, receiving measured
data as a function dependent on time and detected during the
production of glass articles in the glass molding machines and
capable of linking to measured data with the data already stored.
Ans. 10. We do not discern reversible error in these findings.
For the reasons set forth above, in the Final Office Action, and the
Answer, we are not persuaded by any of Appellant’s arguments for reversal
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Application 12/528,285
of the obviousness rejections of claims 10 and 12. We, therefore, affirm
Rejection 3 and Rejection 4.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons provided in the Final Office Action, the Examiner’s
Answer, and above, we affirm the rejections of claims 7, 9, 10, 12, and 13 of
the ’285 Application.
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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