11314704 (B.P.A.I. May. 9, 2012)

Ex Parte Pohlmann

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesMay 9, 2012

11314704 (B.P.A.I. May. 9, 2012)

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. 11/314,704 12/21/2005 Cevin Marc Pohlmann M&N-KRO-108 7497 24131 7590 05/09/2012 LERNER GREENBERG STEMER LLP P O BOX 2480 HOLLYWOOD, FL 33022-2480 EXAMINER TOLIN, MICHAEL A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1745 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/09/2012 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 BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES ________________ Ex parte CEVIN MARC POHLMANN ________________ Appeal 2010-011756 Application 11/314,704 Technology Center 1700 ________________ Before CHARLES F. WARREN, TERRY J. OWENS, and BEVERLY A. FRANKLIN, Administrative Patent Judges. OWENS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 71-74, 77-84, 87, and 94-97. Claims 86 and 88-91, which are all of the other pending claims, have been withdrawn from consideration by the Examiner. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Appeal 2010-011756 Application 11/314,704 2 The Invention The Appellant claims a process for making wood fiber insulating material boards and mats. Claim 71 is illustrative: 71. A process for producing wood fiber insulating material boards and mats, which comprises the steps of: introducing natural fibers and binder fibers from bale openers uniformly through separate weighing devices disposed downstream of the bale openers into a blow line in a desired mixing ratio and supplied pneumatically through the blow line to a storage container resulting in a fiber mixture, wherein the natural fibers include wood fibers; blowing the fiber mixture from the storage container onto a first transport belt with a three-dimensional alignment of the fibers resulting in a fiber fleece; scattering thermally activatable synthetic resin granules, obtained during a recycling of plastic parts, onto the fiber fleece and being distributed uniformly over an entire width; defibering the fiber fleece at an end of the first transport belt; remixing the fiber fleece once again resulting in a remixed fiber mixture; blowing the remixed fiber mixture onto a second transport belt with a three-dimensional alignment of the fibers resulting in a mat; obtaining a given thickness of the mat by setting a circulating speed of the second transport belt; transferring the mat to an oven belt and moving the mat through a heating/cooling oven, for softening of the binder fibers and the synthetic resin granules, resulting in an intimate bonding of the wood fibers, the binder fibers, and the synthetic resin granules; and setting a final thickness of the wood fiber insulating material boards or mats to a range of 3 to 350 mm by calibration and/or compaction and setting a bulk density of the mat to a range of 20 to 300 kg/m3. The References Fleissner US 3,765,971 Oct. 16, 1973 Davis US 4,734,236 Mar. 29, 1998 Baigas US 5,417,785 May 23, 1995 Desai US 6,316,075 B1 Nov. 13, 2001 Appeal 2010-011756 Application 11/314,704 3 Kean US 6,475,315 B1 Nov. 5, 2002 Yang (Yang ‘566) US 2003/0044566 A1 Mar. 6, 2003 Collison US 2003/0134557 A1 Jul. 17, 2003 Yang (Yang ‘141) US 2004/0192141 A1 Sep. 30, 2004 The Rejection Claims 71-74, 77-84, 87, and 94-97 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over the combined disclosures of Kean, Yang ‘566, Baigas, Yang ‘141, Davis, Fleissner, Collison, and Desai. OPINION We reverse the rejection. We need to address only the sole independent claim, i.e., claim 71. That claim requires “blowing the fiber mixture from the storage container onto a first transport belt with a three- dimensional alignment of the fibers resulting in a fiber fleece” and “scattering thermally activatable synthetic resin granules, obtained during a recycling of plastic parts, onto the fiber fleece and being distributed uniformly over an entire width”. The Appellant argues that Davis deposits plastic fibers as a thin coating over a blanket of wood fibers (col. 3, ll. 20-27) rather than blowing the wood fibers onto a conveyor to form a three-dimensional fleece and then scattering resin granules onto the fiber fleece (Br. 12; Reply Br. 2-3). The Appellant argues that one of ordinary skill in the art would not have been led to modify Davis by references wherein fibers other than wood fibers are used, such as shredded newsprint, cardboard or other similar ground wood products (Kean, col. 3, ll. 1-4), cellulose fibers obtained from recycled paper (Yang ‘566, ¶ 0020), textile fibers (Baigas, col. 5, ll. 1-6), and mineral or inorganic fibers combined with plastic-containing bonding fibers (Yang ‘141, ¶¶ 0007-8) (Br. 8-13). Appeal 2010-011756 Application 11/314,704 4 The Examiner argues that “cellulosic fibers are considered wood fibers” and that the Appellant’s wood fibers obtained from pulped wood in a refiner (Spec. 3:19-20) are of the same type used in the manufacture of paper (Ans. 17). The Examiner argues that the references other than Davis disclose what was generally known and that, taken with Davis, they would have suggested the Appellant’s process (Ans. 4-12). The Examiner has used to modify Davis, wherein a fibrous web is formed by depositing synthetic plastic fibers as a thin coating over a blanket of wood fibers (col. 3, ll. 20-27), a combination of references directed toward making fibrous webs which can comprise natural fibers (such as cotton), synthetic fibers, and secondary cellulose fiber (such as newsprint, cardboard or similar ground wood products) (Kean, col. 2, l. 47 – col. 3, l. 4), textile fibers and natural fibers (such as animal fibers and vegetable fibers, Yang ‘566, ¶¶ 0012-15 or cotton, silk and wool, Baigas, col. 5, ll. 1- 5), and mineral or inorganic fibers, in combination with plastic-containing bonding fibers (Yang ‘141, ¶¶ 0007-8). The Examiner has combined the references as all being directed toward fibrous material (Ans. 4), but the Examiner has not established that one of ordinary skill in the art would have considered disclosures directed toward processing fibers such as textile fibers, synthetic fibers, and mineral or inorganic fibers to be applicable to processing wood fibers. Nor has the Examiner established that paper, cardboard or similar ground wood products are “wood fibers” according to the broadest reasonable interpretation of that term consistent with the Appellant’s Specification, see In re Translogic Tech. Inc., 504 F.3d 1249, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2007), or have characteristics sufficiently similar to wood fibers, such as the Appellant’s pulped wood in a refiner, that one of ordinary Appeal 2010-011756 Application 11/314,704 5 skill in the art would have considered disclosures regarding processing them to be pertinent to processing wood fibers. Thus, the record indicates that the Examiner used impermissible hindsight in rejecting the Appellant’s claims. See In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967) (“A rejection based on section 103 clearly must rest on a factual basis, and these facts must be interpreted without hindsight reconstruction of the invention from the prior art”). Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection. DECISION/ORDER The rejection of claims 71-74, 77-84, 87 and 94-97 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over the combined disclosures of Kean, Yang ‘566, Baigas, Yang ‘141, Davis, Fleissner, Collison, and Desai is reversed. It is ordered that the Examiner’s decision is reversed. REVERSED sld