14191505 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 29, 2018)

Ex Parte Ignaczak et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 29, 2018

14191505 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 29, 2018)

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. 14/191,505 02/27/2014 Brad Ignaczak 081276-9711-US00 5135 34044 7590 01/31/2018 MICHAEL BEST & FRIEDRICH LLP (Bosch) 100 EAST WISCONSIN AVENUE MILWAUKEE, WI 53202 EXAMINER MELTON, TODD M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3669 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/31/2018 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): mkeipdocket@michaelbest.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BRAD IGNACZAK, OLIVER SCHWINDT, JAMES KIM, and MICHAEL NEUMEYER Appeal 2017-003057 Application 14/191,505 Technology Center 3600 Before THU A. DANG, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and BETH Z. SHAW, Administrative Patent Judges. DANG, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants have filed a Request for Rehearing under 37 C.F.R. §41.52 (hereinafter “Request”) on January 2, 2018 for reconsideration of our affirmance of the Examiner’s rejection of the claims in a Decision mailed November 2, 2017 (hereinafter “Decision”). The Decision affirmed the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-18 under 35U.S.C. § 103(a). We have reconsidered our Decision in light of Appellants’ comments in the Request (Req. Reh’g 1-2). We grant the Rehearing Request to the extent that we consider the Appellants’ arguments infra, but DENY the Appeal 2017-003057 Application 14/191,505 request to modify our Decision. We incorporate our earlier Decision herein by reference. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1). II. ISSUES The issue we address in this Request is whether Appellants have persuasively identified that the Board misapplied the relevant law or misapprehended Appellants ’ arguments set forth in the Appeal Brief in finding no error with the Examiner’s finding that Inoue in view of Chen teaches or suggests a “controller” configured to control the braking system by “prefilling the brake system when the object is detected regardless of a value of the signal from the dynamic state sensor” (claim 1). III. ANALYSIS A request for rehearing “must state with particularity the points believed to have been misapprehended or overlooked by the Board.” 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1); see Ex parte Quist, 95 USPQ2d 1140, 1141 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). A request for rehearing is not an opportunity to express disagreement with a Board decision or rehash arguments previously presented. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1). The proper course for an Appellant dissatisfied with a Board decision is to seek judicial review, not to file a request for rehearing to reargue issues that have already been decided. See 35U.S.C. §§ 141, 145. In the Request, Appellants merely contend that “the Board’s analysis is flawed” (Req. Reh’g 1). In particular, Appellants merely ask 1) “how is pre-charging not performed every time the object is detected?” (id.), and contend that 2) “a person skilled in the art would clearly understand that 2 Appeal 2017-003057 Application 14/191,505 dynamic state sensors can include other sensors” and that 3) the Board “incorrectly defines a proximity sensor as [an] object sensor” wherein “Chen requires more than object detection of pre-filling of the brakes” (id. at 2). That is, in the Request, Appellants do not state with particularity the points believed to have been misapprehended or overlooked by the Board as required by 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1). Nevertheless, set forth in our Decision, we gave the claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification. (Dec. 5, citing In re Morris, 111 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997)). That is, while we interpreted the claims broadly but reasonably in light of the Specification, as established by the Federal Circuit, we did not import limitations from the Specification into the claims. (Id.). Claim 1 is exemplary and merely recites “the controller is configured to control the braking system by prefilling the brake system when the object is detected regardless of a value of the signal from the dynamic state sensor, ...” (claim 1). As set forth in the Decision, Contrary to Appellants’ contentions, claim 1 does not preclude pre-charging “only” when a possible accident is indicated, and does not require that the pre-charging occurs “every time” an object is detected (App. Br. 6). In particular, claim 1 merely recites prefilling the brake system “when the object is detected regardless of a value of the signal from the dynamic state sensor” (claim 1 (emphasis added)). Decision 6. Although Appellants question “how is pre-charging not performed every time the object is detected?” (Req. Reh’g 1, emphasis added), nothing in the claim requires that the pre-charging is performed “every time” (claim 1). That is, the claim merely requires that pre-charging is performed “when” 3 Appeal 2017-003057 Application 14/191,505 (i.e., at any instance that) the object is detected, the claim does not require pre-charging “every time” any such object is detected. Because “applicants may amend claims to narrow their scope, a broad construction during prosecution creates no unfairness to the applicant or patentee.” In re ICON Health and Fitness, Inc., 496 F.3d 1374, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citation omitted). Here, Appellants have had a fair opportunity to amend the claims during the prosecution or present a narrower or different scope of claims, but Appellants have chosen not to. Similarly, although Appellants contend “a person skilled in the art would clearly understand that dynamic state sensors can include other sensors” (Req. Reh’g 2, emphasis added), as set forth in our Decision, ... we find no error with the Examiner’s broad but reasonable interpretation of a “dynamic state sensor” as separate from (i.e., not including) an object detection sensor, which comprises only either a vehicle speed sensor or a steering sensor. (Decision 6, citing Ans. 2). That is, nothing in the Specification and claims precludes the Examiner’s broad but reasonable interpretation of “dynamic state sensor” (Ans. 2). Although Appellants contend that the dynamic state sensor “can” include other sensors (Req. Reh’g 2), Appellants provide no persuasive arguments and supporting evidence that the Examiner’s alternative interpretation of the term is overly broad or unreasonable. In particular, because the scope of the claim covers many possible meanings of “dynamic state sensor,” we were unconvinced that that the Examiner’s construction is overly broad or unreasonable. Further, in our Decision, we agreed with the Examiner’s finding that 4 Appeal 2017-003057 Application 14/191,505 Chen discloses a controller that receives a proximity signal from a “proximity object sensor” (i.e., an object presence sensor), and once the controller is activated responsive to the proximity signal (i.e., the detection that an object is present), the brake is prefilled. (Decision 7). Although Appellants contend the Board improperly equates proximity and object sensors (Req. Reh’g 2), there is no clear definition for “object detection sensor” in the Specification or claims. That is, contrary to Appellants’ contention {id.), nothing in the Specification and claims preclude a broad but reasonable interpretation of an “object detection sensor” as an object detection sensor that detects the proximity of an object (Decision 7). Thus, as set forth in our Decision, we agree with the Examiner that, like Appellants’ invention, Chen discloses controlling vehicle braking based on detected objects in proximity (i.e., near) to the vehicle, wherein if the controller determines that an object is in proximity to the vehicle’s predicted path, the brake system is signaled by the controller to prefill the brakes to prepare the vehicle for braking Id. Accordingly, as set forth in our Decision, we agree with the Examiner that Chen teaches and/or suggests the contested limitations of the claims. Id. As set forth above, Appellants’ Request does not persuade us of any points we misapprehended or overlooked in the Decision, or that we misapplied the relevant law. We therefore maintain our affirmance of the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 5 Appeal 2017-003057 Application 14/191,505 IV. CONCLUSION AND DECISION We have considered the arguments raised by Appellants in the Request for Rehearing. Although we have considered our prior Decision in light of the Request for Rehearing, we decline to modify our prior Decision in any respect. REHEARING DENIED 6