Ex Parte Suchoff

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 25, 2016

12917087 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 25, 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.
12/917,087 11/01/2010 Michael Suchoff 070199.000005 1823
20230 7590 11/29/2016
Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP
1909 K St., NW
9th Floor
WASHINGTON, DC 20006-1152
EXAMINER
THOMAS, LUCY M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2836
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/29/2016 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):
patlaw @ vorys. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MICHAEL SUCHOFF
Appeal 2015-000628
Application 12/917,0s?1
Technology Center 2800
Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and
JOHN D. HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judges.
HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant files this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We heard oral arguments on November 17, 2016. A
transcript of the hearing will be added to the record in due course.
We reverse.
THE CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellant’s claimed invention relates to “controlling the delivery of
power to a load, and more particularly relates to power control techniques
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Raritan Americas, Inc.
App. Br. 1.
Appeal 2015-000628
Application 12/917,087
that improve reliability and reduce power consumption.” Spec. 1. Claim 1
is illustrative of the subject matter of the appeal and is reproduced below.
1. An apparatus, comprising:
at least one electromechanical relay including a coil and
at least one pair of contacts, the contacts transitioning between
a de-energized state and an energized state in response to
current through the coil;
a microcontroller having at least one tri-state output
operating to produce ON, OFF, and FLOAT states; and
a driver circuit operating, in conjunction with the tri-state
output of the microcontroller, to control the current through the
coil of the relay such that:
(i) a transition of the tri-state output from OFF to FLOAT
maintains the contacts of the relay in their de-energized
state through the transition, and
(ii) a transition of the tri-state output from ON to FLOAT
maintains the contacts of the relay in their energized state
through the transition.
REJECTIONS ON APPEAL
(1) The Examiner rejected claims 1—16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Bedingfield et al.
(US 2009/0213520 Al; published Aug. 27, 2009) (hereinafter
“Bedingfield”) and Peterson et al. (US 5,055,962; issued Oct. 8, 1991)
(hereinafter “Peterson”).
(2) The Examiner rejected claims 17—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over the combination of Bedingfield, Peterson, and
Kemahan (US 2005/0162144 Al; published July 28, 2005).
DISPOSITIVE ISSUE ON APPEAL
The dispositive issue for this appeal is whether the Examiner errs in
finding the cited portions of Bedingfield teach or suggest “a microcontroller
2
Appeal 2015-000628
Application 12/917,087
having at least one tri-state output operating to produce ON, OFF, and
FLOAT states,” as recited in claims 1, 10, and 17.
ANALYSIS
We find Appellant’s arguments persuasive with respect to the cited
portions of Bedingfield failing to teach or suggest the above dispositive,
disputed limitation.
Appellant argues the combination, and Bedingfield in particular, fails
to teach or suggest the above disputed limitation. See App. Br. 8—9.
Appellant argues2 the Examiner incorrectly finds Bedingfield’s teaching of a
control element 30 (e.g., a microprocessor) providing a reduced power level
output to hold a relay in its current state constitutes a FLOAT state in
accordance with the claim language. See App. Br. 8—9. Specifically,
Appellant argues Bedingfield teaches using a pulse width modulation signal
to supply power to the relay where the ‘“reduced power’ results from
decreasing the duty cycle of the PWM waveform, and not by reducing the
level of the ‘ON’ portion of the PWM waveform. To the contrary, in the
reduced duty cycle waveform, the levels of ‘ON’ and ‘OFF’ states remain
the same.” See id. (citing Bedingfield 9); see also Reply Br. 3^4 (noting
the Examiner agrees that reducing the duty cycle reduces the current and
power, but not the amplitude of the waveform, in arguing that Bedingfield
fails to teach a FLOAT state).
2 Appellant also argues the Examiner incorrectly conflates Bedingfield’s
teachings of control element 30 and supervisory controller 32 to find a
microcontroller having at least one tri-state output. See App. Br. 6—7 (citing
Bedingfield 140). We do not reach this issue.
3
Appeal 2015-000628
Application 12/917,087
The Examiner finds the combination, and Bedingfield in particular,
teaches the disputed limitation. See Ans. 4—5; Final Act. 2 (citing
Bedingfield 9, 41). The Examiner finds Bedingfield’s reduced power
level is the FLOAT state. See id. The Examiner also finds “reducing the
duty cycle of waveforms . . . reduces ON and OFF time of the transistors and
correspondingly the duration of ON current and OFF current through the
coil, not the amplitude of the current through the transistors or amplitude of
the ON current through the coil.” Ans. 5 (citing Kemahan3 Fig. 44a).
We are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments. We agree with
Appellant that the cited portions of the combination, and Bedingfield in
particular, fail to teach or suggest a FLOAT state in accordance with the
disputed limitation. Specifically, we find the cited portions of Bedingfield
do not teach a third state output (i.e., a FLOAT state), but rather teach the
frequency (i.e., duty cycle) with which the two state outputs (i.e., ON and
OFF) occur. See, e.g., Bedingfield 9, 40, 42, 53; Fig. 1.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of
claims 1,10, and 17, as well as claims 2—9, 11—16, and 18—20, which depend
from one of these claims.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—20.
REVERSED
3 We agree with the Examiner that the rejection of claim 1 does not rely
upon Kemahan, however, we also agree with Appellant that Kemahan
provides an example of duty cycles and waveforms as taught in Bedingfield.
See Ans. 5; Reply Br. 3^4.
4