Ex Parte SLOANE et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 15, 2016

12897906 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 15, 2016)

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.
12/897,906 10/05/2010 THOMPSON M. SLOANE P001807-R&D-MJL 2806
60770 7590 12/16/2016
General Motors Corporation
c/o REISING ETHINGTON P.C.
P.O. BOX 4390
TROY, MI 48099-4390
EXAMINER
SHEPPARD, JASON A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3748
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/16/2016 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 THOMPSON M. SLOANE, KEVIN L. PERRY,
DAVID L. HILDEN, NORMAN D. BRINKMAN, JONG H. LEE,
MICHAEL B. VIOLA, and STEVEN J, SCHMIEG
Appeal 2014-0069021
Application 12/897,9062
Technology Center 3700
Before JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, BRADLEY B. BAYAT, and
ROBERT J. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of
claims 1—10. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
SUMMARY OF THE DECISION
We AFFIRM.
1 Our decision references Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed
Nov. 26, 2013), Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed May 27, 2014), and the
Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Mar. 26, 2014).
2 Appellants identify the real party in interest as “General Motors Company”
(App. Br. 1).
Appeal 2014-006902
Application 12/897,906
THE INVENTION
Appellants’ invention relates generally to managing the selective
catalytic reduction of nitrogen oxides in the exhaust gas stream from a lean-
bum engine. Spec. 11. Claim 1, the sole independent claim on appeal, is
reproduced below and representative of the claimed subject matter.
1. A method of determining amounts of additions of an oxidized
hydrocarbon reductant material for the catalyst-enhanced
reduction of NOx constituents in the exhaust from a vehicle
powered by a lean-bum engine; the vehicle engine comprising a
plurality of combustion cylinders in which a fuel and air are
mixed and ignited for powering reciprocating pistons in the
cylinders and an exhaust manifold, connected to the cylinders,
in which manifold the combustion products from the cylinders
are combined as sequential portions of an exhaust gas stream
comprising oxygen, water, nitrogen, and NOx; and the vehicle
comprising an exhaust conduit for conducting the exhaust gas
stream to a reactor into contact with a silver/alumina catalyst,
contained within the reactor, for the chemical reduction of NOx
constituents by reaction with the added oxidized hydrocarbon
reductant; the method comprising, as the vehicle is being
operated and the exhaust stream produced:
continually measuring (a) the oxygen content of a portion
of the exhaust stream and (b) the NOx content of a portion the
exhaust stream before the stream enters the reduction catalyst-
containing reactor;
continually measuring (c) the temperature of the
reduction catalyst in the reduction catalyst-containing reactor;
continually measuring (d) the gas hourly space velocity
of the exhaust gas stream flowing in contact with the reduction
catalyst; and, using at least the four measured values (a—d),
continually determining an amount of the reductant
material, to maximize NOx reduction by the silver catalyst, to
be added to a current portion of the exhaust gas stream before it
enters the reduction reactor, such determination being made
using a pre-programmed, on vehicle computer and using at least
the current four measured values; and
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Appeal 2014-006902
Application 12/897,906
adding the currently determined amount of reductant to
the exhaust stream before it flows into contact with the
reduction catalyst.
App. Br. 15—16, Claims Appendix.
THE REJECTIONS
Claims 1 and 4—9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Schmieg (US 2008/0066456 Al, pub. Mar. 20, 2008).
Final Act. 2—6.
Claims 2, 3, and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Schmieg and Miyadera (US 6,057,259, iss. May 2, 2000).
Id. at 6—8.
DISCUSSION
We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments in the Briefs against the
Examiner’s Answer and the Final Rejection, and we are not persuaded of
error. We adopt the Examiner’s findings and rationale provided in the
Answer and Final Rejection as our own, and we note the following for
emphasis.
Independent claim 1 and dependent claims 2—5, 8, and 10
The Examiner found Schmieg performs all the recited steps of claim 1
using a hydrocarbon reductant, instead of an oxidized hydrocarbon reductant
(OHR) as claimed. Final Act. 2-4. Accordingly, there is no dispute that
Schmieg discloses the process claimed, albeit utilizing a different reductant.
The Examiner finds:
Schmieg teaches that, as with hydrocarbon, partially oxidized
hydrocarbons allow reduction of NOx over a silver alumina
catalyst at lower temperatures (see paragraph [0007]).
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Application 12/897,906
Consequently, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art at the time of the invention to have tried the
method disclosed by Schmieg using an oxidized reductant as an
art-recognized, comparably equivalent substitute for the
hydrocarbon reductant disclosed by Schmieg.
Id. at 4.
Appellants’ challenge the rejection of claim 1 by arguing that the
proposed rejection is improper because Schmieg teaches away from the
claimed invention. App. Br. 5—10; Reply Br. 2—5. According to Appellants
A skilled artisan would have been led in a direction divergent
from the use of OHC reductant materials in Schmieg’s
disclosed method to reduce NOx. Indeed, Schmieg identifies
OHC materials only with enough brevity to quickly reject their
feasibility and ultimately their use: "The use of partially
oxidized hydrocarbons (e.g., alcohols) over Ag/Al203 allows
reduction of NOx at lower temperatures. However such
reductants are unavailable on-board the vehicle." Id. at |0007.
The only mention of OHC materials in Schmieg is thus a
deprecating one.
App. Br. 7.
Appellants’ teaching away argument is not persuasive because it does
not point out why a person of ordinary skill, upon reading Schmieg, would
be led in a direction divergent from the path taken by Appellants. Schmieg
is directed to a process of selectively reducing NOx emissions of an internal
combustion engine by dispensing a hydrocarbon reductant upstream of a
silver-alumina catalytic reactor device. Schmieg, Abstract. The sentence
Appellants cite in Schmieg as “deprecating” merely recognizes a limitation
in using OHRs—the need to store OHRs on-board vehicles because of their
unavailability in vehicles. In other words, Schmieg teaches that
hydrocarbon reductants are already available on-board vehicles because
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Application 12/897,906
“[t]he hydrocarbon reductant may comprise engine fuel.” Id. Prior art does
not teach away from claimed subject matter merely by disclosing a different
solution to a similar problem unless the prior art also criticizes, discredits, or
otherwise discourages the solution claimed. See In re Fulton, 391 F.3d
1195, 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2004). As such, we find that Schmieg does not
discredit, criticize, or discourage the claimed solution.
In fact, Schmieg expressly recognizes that partially oxidized
hydrocarbons over an alumina silver catalyst allows reduction of nitrogen
oxides at lower temperatures. See Schmieg 17. Contrary to Appellants’
argument, the Examiner is not proposing to modify Schmieg’s process by
substituting an OHR. Rather, the Examiner is arguing that it would have
been obvious to utilize an OHR over a silver alumina catalyst at lower
temperatures to reduce nitrogen oxides, given Schmieg’s process and
teachings. Ans. 3 (“As Schmieg acknowledges, it is already known in the
art to use OHC’s as reductants, and it is further known to use said reductants
with silver/alumina catalysts (i.e., the claimed catalyst).”). In other words,
the argument the Examiner is making is that Schmieg’s disclosure would
have led one of ordinary skill in the art to the claimed subject matter. We
are not persuaded otherwise, because on the record before us, the
preponderance of the evidence supports the Examiner’s position.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claim 1. Appellants rely on the patentability of independent claim 1 and do
not separately argue dependent claims 2—5, 8, and 10. Therefore, we sustain
the rejection claims 2—5, 8, and 10 for the same reasons as claim 1.
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Dependent claims 6, 7, and 9
We have considered but are not persuaded by Appellants’ separate
arguments regarding dependent claims 6, 7, and 9. App. Br. 11—14; Reply
Br. 5—7. Instead, we agree with and adopt the Examiner’s findings and
response to arguments on pages 3—6 of the Answer as our own. Therefore,
we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 6, 7, and 9 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).
DECISION
The decision to reject claims 1—10 is affirmed.
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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