Ex parte OLSON

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Dec 24, 1998

08455912 (B.P.A.I. Dec. 24, 1998)

Application for patent filed May 31, 1995. 1
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered
today (1) was not written for publication in a law
journal and (2) is not binding precedent of the
Board.
Paper No. 14
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte DARWIN C. OLSON
____________
Appeal No. 98-0028
Application No. 08/455,9121
____________
ON BRIEF
____________
Before ABRAMS, FRANKFORT, and McQUADE, Administrative Patent
Judges.
ABRAMS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal from the decision of the examiner
finally rejecting claims 1-9 and 17-20, which constitute all
of the claims remaining of record in the application.
Appeal No. 98-0028
Application No. 08/455,912
2
The appellant's invention is directed to a bushing for a
fluid coupling to a storage tank. The subject matter before
us on appeal is illustrated by reference to claim 1, which has
been reproduced in an appendix to the Brief.
THE REFERENCES
The references relied upon by the examiner to support the
final rejection are:
McGugan 4,298,221 Nov. 3,
1981
Hoogenboom 4,454,741 Jun. 19,
1984
Puttonen et al. (Puttonen) 5,340,166 Aug. 23,
1994
Robinson WO 92/06324 Apr. 16,
1992
THE REJECTIONS
Claims 1-9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Robinson in view of Hoogenboom and Puttonen.
Claims 17-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Puttonen in view of McGugan.
The rejections are explained in the Examiner's Answer.
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Application No. 08/455,912
3
The opposing viewpoints of the appellant are set forth in
the Brief.
OPINION
The guidance provided by our reviewing court for
evaluating rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is as follows. In
rejections under Section 103, the examiner bears the initial
burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness (see In
re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed.
Cir. 1993)), which is established when the teachings of the
prior art itself would appear to have suggested the claimed
subject matter to one of ordinary skill in the art (see In re
Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783, 26 USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir.
1993)). This is not to say, however, that the claimed
invention must expressly be suggested in any one or all of the
references, rather, the test for obviousness is what the
combined teachings of the references would have suggested to
one of ordinary skill in the art (see Cable Electric Products,
Inc. v. Genmark, Inc., 770 F.2d 1015, 1025, 226 USPQ 881, 886-
87 (Fed. Cir. 1985)), considering that a conclusion of
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Application No. 08/455,912
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obviousness may be made from common knowledge and common sense
of the person of ordinary skill in the art without any
specific hint or suggestion in a particular reference (see In
re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385, 1390, 163 USPQ 545, 549 (CCPA 1969)),
with skill being presumed on the part of the artisan, rather
than the lack thereof (see In re Sovish, 769 F.2d 738, 742,
226 USPQ 771, 774 (Fed. Cir. 1985)). Insofar as the
references themselves are concerned, we are bound to consider
the disclosure of each for what it fairly teaches one of
ordinary skill in the art, including not only the specific
teachings, but also the inferences which one of ordinary skill
in the art would reasonably have been expected to draw
therefrom (see In re Boe, 355 F.2d 961, 965, 148 USPQ 507, 510
(CCPA 1966) and In re Preda, 401 F.2d 825, 826, 159 USPQ 342,
344 (CCPA 1968)).
There are two independent claims before us on appeal.
The first of these is claim 1, a Jepson-type claim, which in
the preamble recites a tank for containing a fluid, the tank
having a wall of a selected material in which a bore is
provided for slidably receiving a fluid coupling secured in
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Application No. 08/455,912
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the bore by at least one radially projecting member that
prevents the coupling from being removed from the bore, with
the fluid coupling being sealed with respect to the bore by a
seal. Robinson discloses a tank for receiving a fluid, and a
bore in the wall of the tank. Robinson does not disclose or
teach the other structure recited in the preamble. However,
in a Jepson-type claim the elements recited in the preamble
are impliedly admitted to be old in the art (see In re
Ehrreich, 590 F.2d 902, 909-910, 200 USPQ 504, 510 (CCPA
1979)), and in the present case that implication is validated
in the appellant’s specification. On page 2 thereof, at lines
10-18, the appellant admits that it was known at the time of
his invention to utilize quick-connect couplings that were
“simply pushed home to seat within a bushing installed on the
tank,” and goes on to state that the bushings were welded onto
the exterior of the formed tank to provide a smooth bore, and
it was important to make sure that the weld was fluid-tight,
for otherwise the fluid or the gas could leak out. From our
perspective, one of ordinary skill in the art would have known
that a “quick-connect” coupling that is “pushed home to seat”
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Application No. 08/455,912
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(emphasis added) would be equipped with a radially extending
member of some sort that prevents it from being removed from
the bore, and that a fluid connection which must be sealed
necessarily includes seals at appropriate locations other than
the weld, such as in the bore between the opposed surfaces of
the coupling and the bore, so than fluid cannot leak out
there. In this regard, we draw attention to Puttonen, which
discloses annular seal means for sealing between a circular
connector through which a pipe or hose is passed and the
circular opening into which it has been inserted, for the
purpose of preventing the entry of water or other materials
(column 1). It therefore is our conclusion that all of the
structure recited in the preamble would have been known to one
of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the appellant’s
invention.
The body of claim 1 recites that the bore be formed in
the tank after the tank is configured into an enclosure, and
that the bore be “a flow drilled bore formed by flowing the
material originally at the site around a flow drill to form a
bushing that is unitary with the tank.” This structure is not
taught by Robinson, the primary reference. The examiner
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Application No. 08/455,912
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points out that these are product-by-process limitations. Be
that as it may, the appellant has acknowledged that “[t]he
flow drill process is a well-known process,” and cites two
patents as evidence of such in his specification (page 5). As
explained in one of these patents (No. 4,428,214), this
technology is used for making “rimmed or bossed holes in metal
workpieces” such as gas pipe by heating the metal of the
workpiece (column 1). Moreover, the examiner cites Hoogenboom
as an example of the use of flow drill technology for forming
holes in sheet material, and Hoogenboom describes his
invention as producing “holes having a collar, in metal sheet
or metal tube walls” (column 1, lines 5 and 6, emphasis
added). It therefore is our view that one of ordinary skill
in the art would have known that flow drill technology is
usable to form holes in completed hollow structures, such as
the fuel tank disclosed by Robinson, which is equipped with a
reinforced opening 38 that has been installed by means not
specified in the reference. Suggestion for the use of flow
drilling in forming such an opening is found in the self-
evident advantages thereof, which would have been known to the
artisan, such as the lack of necessity for additional separate
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Application No. 08/455,912
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elements and the lack of waste or residue from the drilling
operation. Note that the configuration of the bushing in
Hoogenboom is like that disclosed and claimed by the
appellant.
The claim goes on to require that the bore define “an
inner surface with an axial length substantially greater than
the thickness of the wall” so that it can receive a
substantial portion of the fluid coupling wherein this
substantial portion directly contacts the wall with the
retaining and sealing members. With regard to the axial
length of the bore, we first point out that the appellant has
defined “substantial portion” of the fluid coupling as being
of such length that both the retaining and sealing members
engage the surface of the bore (specification, sentence
bridging pages 2 and 3). From our perspective, one of
ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that such an
arrangement must be present, or else both the retaining and
the sealing functions cannot be accomplished. This is
confirmed by Puttonen (Figure 4). The use of appropriate
retaining and sealing members would have been obvious to the
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Application No. 08/455,912
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artisan, who is presumed to have skill, rather than the lack
thereof.
For the reasons set forth above, we shall sustain the
rejection of claim 1 and of claims 2-5 and 9, which the
appellant has grouped therewith (Brief, page 5).
Claim 6 adds to claim 1 the limitation that the retaining
and sealing members are axially displaced on the coupling and
engage the inner surface of the wall of the bore at axially
displaced locations. The use of such an arrangement to seal
an opening in which a fitting is installed is disclosed by
Puttonen. We view this as a confirmation that it would have
been within the purview of one of ordinary skill in the art to
utilize both retaining and sealing members in a quick-connect
coupling that seats within a bushing in a fluid tank, and to
locate these elements axially spaced from one another.
The rejection of claim 6 therefore is sustained, as is
the rejection of claims 7 and 8, which were grouped with claim
6.
Independent claim 17 is directed to an improvement in a
push-to-connect coupling for mounting in an unstopped bore
having cylindrical surface. The improvement comprises an
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Application No. 08/455,912
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outer sleeve having an external surface on which at least one
barb is positioned for engaging the surface of the wall of the
bore and on which a peripheral seal is positioned, and a stop
on the coupling for engaging the outside surface of the wall
adjacent the bore so that it arrests the insertion of the
coupling into the bore. This claim stands unpatentable over
the combined teachings of Puttonen and McGugan, the examiner’s
position being that Puttonen discloses all of the claimed
subject matter except for the stop, which is taught by
McGugan. We do not agree.
The examiner has not pointed out, and we are at a loss to
find, the required “at least one barb” positioned for engaging
the surface of the bore in the Puttonen device, which is held
in place by the frictional interaction of a plurality of
compressible ribs that cause the coupling to become “tightly
wedged” in the bore (column 2, lines 38 and 39). Puttonen
also fails to disclose or teach means for “arresting
insertion” of the coupling into the bore, as is required by
claim 17. In this reference, the uppermost rib does not
perform such a function; while the coupling collar is pressed
into the bore “until the upper rib is level with the mouth”
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Application No. 08/455,912
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(column 2, lines 64 and 65), the purpose of this is not to
arrest insertion, but to seal the gap between the collar and
the bore (column 1, lines 65 and 66). This leads us to the
conclusion that, even if we consider McGugan, the added
reference, as disclosing a stop to arrest insertion, as opined
by the examiner, there would have been no suggestion to modify
Puttonen in the manner proposed by the examiner, that is,
place a stop on the outer surface to arrest insertion of the
coupling. To do so would appear to adversely impact upon the
sealing function performed by Puttonen’s uppermost
compressible ring, thus acting as a disincentive for such a
change.
We therefore will not sustain the rejection of claims 17-
20.
We have carefully considered all of the arguments
presented by the appellant. However, as to the rejection that
we have sustained, they have not convinced us that the
decision of the examiner is in error. Our position with
respect to these arguments should be apparent from the
explanations provided above.
SUMMARY
Appeal No. 98-0028
Application No. 08/455,912
12
The rejection of claims 1-9 is sustained.
The rejection of claims 17-20 is not sustained.
The decision of the examiner is affirmed-in-part.
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Application No. 08/455,912
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No period for taking any subsequent action in connection
with this appeal may be extended under 37 CFR § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
NEAL E. ABRAMS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
CHARLES E. FRANKFORT ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
JOHN P. McQUADE )
Administrative Patent Judge )
NEA/jlb
Appeal No. 98-0028
Application No. 08/455,912
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