Ex Parte LachDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 6, 201612004004 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 6, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/004,004 12/19/2007 7590 07/07/2016 THOMAS E. LACH, PRESIDENT DECA-MEDICS, INC. P.O. BOX 163483 COLUMBUS, OH 43216 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Thomas E. Lach 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. D24-3 8244 EXAMINER THANH, QUANG D ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3771 MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE 07/07/2016 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 THOMAS E. LACH Appeal2014-005404 Application 12/004,004 Technology Center 3700 Before EDWARD A. BROWN, WILLIAM A. CAPP, and FREDERICK C. LANEY, Administrative Patent Judges. CAPP, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final rejection of claims 1-20 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Cantrell (US 6,676,613 B2, iss. Jan. 13, 2004) and Geeham (US 5,295,481, iss. Mar 22, 1994). 1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 The Examiner also objected to claims 21-26 as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but indicated that such claims would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. Final Action 8. Appeal2014-005404 Application 12/004,004 THE INVENTION Appellant's invention relates to an apparatus for performing CPR on a patient in cardiac arrest. Spec. 2-5. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. An apparatus for increasing the flow of blood in a patient, the apparatus comprising: (A) a base contoured to seat near a central region of a patient's chest; (B) an actuator; (C) a substantially inelastic belt configured to wrap around said patient's chest substantially in a plane; and (D) a force converter, mounted on said base, coupled to said actuator, and having belt connectors coupled to opposite extremities of said belt with said belt substantially in said plane, converting into belt. tightening resultants applied to said belt connectors directed substantially tangentially to said chest a force manually applied .to said actuator by a person placing two hands at two spatially separated points along a line making a nonzero angle to said plane and directed toward said chest, said force converter providing a substantially predefined, substantially linear path generally toward said chest for said two points to move along as said force is manually applied to said actuator at said two points. OPINION Claim 1 The Examiner finds that Cantrell discloses all of the limitations of the claimed invention except for the hand grip being used by a person placing two hands at two spatially separated points as claimed. Final Action 2. The Examiner relies on Geeham as disclosing the hand grip limitation. Id. at 2- 3. The Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to substitute Cantrell's 2 Appeal2014-005404 Application 12/004,004 hand grip with the hand grip taught by Geeham. Id. at 3. According to the Examiner, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have done this to provide a suitable ergonomic hand grip that allows the user to conveniently place two hands on the handles along a line that makes a non-zero angle to the plane of a belt wrapped around a patient's chest. Appellant traverses the Examiner's rejection by arguing, among other things, that the Examiner's proposed combination will not result in a force converter providing a substantially linear path toward a patient's chest as claimed. Appeal Br. 45. Appellant argues that a Cantrell/Geeham combined device will exhibit a handle bar that will occupy a horizontal orientation at only one point in the vertical stroke toward the patient's chest. Id. at 47. According to Appellant, this follows from the fact that lever arm 336 rotates around hinge 335 during the vertical stroke. Id. at 41. Appellant points out that affixing the T-handle of Gee ham to lever arm 3 3 6 of Cantrell will cause it to rotate in the same manner as the lever arm 336 itself. Id. at 42. Appellant argues that rigidly affixing Geeham's handles to Cantrell's lever arm 336 results in substantial sidewise forces being applied to box 310 during operation. Id. at 43. In response, the Examiner acknowledges that Cantrell teaches that hand grip 337 is fixedly attached to the device with no rotational attachment point or hinge. Ans. 20. The Examiner states that a person of ordinary skill in the art would use a conventional method to simply replace hand grip 337 with Geeham's handle 18a-b and attach it to the same attachment point of Cantrell's device. Id. The Examiner finds that such a modified handle does not rotate and "remains level" just like the original hand grip 337. Id. We disagree. 3 Appeal2014-005404 Application 12/004,004 Cantrell discloses a lever arm 336 that pivots about hinge 335. Cantrell, Fig. 12, col. 8, 11. 9-11 ("Lower lever arm 334 is attached by hinge 335 to upper lever arm 336. Hand grip 337 is attached to the upper end of upper lever arm 336"). Figure 12 further shows that hand grip 337 is attached to lever arm 336 by means of an unnumbered stem that extends in a substantially perpendicular direction relative to the longitudinal axis of lever arm 336. See Fig. 12. As a downward stroke is applied to Cantrell's device, it can be seen that lever arm 336 will rotate relative to the horizontal plane by pivoting about hinge 335. As the lever arm 336 departs from the horizontal plane, the unnumbered stem between arm 336 and grip 337 will correspondingly depart from the vertical plane. See Fig. 12. If Geeham's handle 18a-b were substituted for Cantrell's handgrip 337 as proposed by the Examiner and the connection were fixed as also proposed by the Examiner (Ans. 15-18), the arms of such a T-shaped handle would not remain in a horizontal disposition. Rather, they would rotate out of the horizontal plane to the same extent that lever arm 336 and the unnumbered stem rotate about hinge 335. See Cantrell, Fig. 12. The Examiner's analysis of Cantrell as modified by Gee ham is erroneous. See Ans. 18-19. In particular, the Examiner's finding that the modified handle would remain in a horizontal orientation during a downward stroke despite it having no rotational connection and, nevertheless, apply a downward, vertical force toward the patient's chest with no horizontal or tilting effect is not supported by the teachings of the references. The Examiner does not otherwise explain how a person of ordinary skill in the art would have attached Geeham's handle to Cantrell's device in a manner that would allow the handle to remain in a horizontal 4 Appeal2014-005404 Application 12/004,004 disposition so as to deliver a downward stroke toward the patient's chest without introducing an undesired horizontal or rotational force component. In view of the foregoing discussion, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1. Claims 2-20 Claims 4, 7, and 10 are independent claims. Claims App. The remaining claims, namely claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 11-20, depend, directly or indirectly, from either of claims 1, 4, 7, and 10. Id. With respect to each of claims 4, 7, and 10, the Examiner relies on a substantially similar factual finding with respect to modifying Cantrell's hand grip 3 3 7 with a T -shaped handle as taught by Gee ham that we previously determined constituted reversible error in connection with the rejection of claim 1. Final Action 6. Thus, the Examiner's rejection of each of claims 4, 7, and 10 also suffers from substantially the same infirmity that we have identified above with respect to claim 1. For essentially the same reasons articulated above with respect to claim 1, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 4, 7, and 10. For similar reasons, we do not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 11-20. See In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (dependent claims are nonobvious if the independent claims from which they depend are nonobvious ). DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-20 is reversed. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation