Ex Parte Urban

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 29, 2018

14158077 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 29, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/158,077 01/17/2014
91017 7590 08/31/2018
Cantor Colburn LLP - Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.
20 Church Street
22nd Floor
Hartford, CT 06103
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Michael R. Urban
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.
72218US01 (U330217US) 2388
EXAMINER
BONZELL, PHILIP J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3642
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/31/2018 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):
usptopatentmail @cantorcolburn.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MICHAEL R. URBAN 1
Appeal2017-003817
Application 14/158,077
Technology Center 3600
Before JENNIFER D. BAHR, JOHN C. KERINS, and
ARTHUR M. PESLAK, Administrative Patent Judges.
KERINS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Michael R. Urban ("Appellant") appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a)
from a final rejection of claims 1-15. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b ).
We REVERSE.
1 Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation is the real party in interest.
Appeal2017-003817
Application 14/158,077
THE INVENTION
Appellant's invention is directed to a composite bonded repair
method. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative:
1. A composite bonded repair method for an aircraft, the
method comprising:
generating a doubling patch of a damaged portion of the aircraft
from topographic data;
filling the damaged portion of the aircraft with filler material;
applying adhesive to the damaged portion of the aircraft and the
filler material; and
adhering the doubling patch to the adhesive.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejects:
(i) claims 1, 4, 6-8, 11, and 13-15 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(l) as
being anticipated by McBroom (US 6,149,749; issued Nov. 21, 2000); and
(ii) claims 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over McBroom in view of Admitted Prior Art (AP A).
ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 4, 6---8, 11, and 13-15 --Anticipation by McBroom
The Examiner finds that McBroom discloses employing topographic
data to generate a doubling patch for a damaged portion of an aircraft. Final
Act. 2--4. Responding to arguments previously advanced by Appellant to the
effect that there is no such disclosure, the Examiner retorts that "McBroom
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Appeal2017-003817
Application 14/158,077
'749 clearly teaches that a damaged portion is viewed and from that a patch
is obtained from a kit to fit the damaged portion." Id. at 6.
The Examiner maintains the same line of reasoning in the Answer, in
which it is stated that "a visual inspection allows for the operator to gather
topographical data in order to decide exactly how to fix the area." Ans. 2.
The Examiner also points to a disclosure in McBroom involving an operator
being satisfied that a patch has been correctly positioned, and reasons that,
"[t]he only way that one can be certain that the patch is correctly positioned
is if the topographical data at least to some extent is known visually by the
operator." Id. However, once the patch is assessed for being in the correct
position, the patch has already been fabricated and selected from a kit of
available patches. This does not correspond to the claim limitation requiring
a patch to be generated from the topographical data. 2
Accordingly, we are unable to sustain the Examiner's rejection of
claims 1, 4, 6-8, 11, and 13-15 based on anticipation by McBroom.
Claims 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, and 12 -- Unpatentability over McBroom and AP A
The rejection of these claims is based on an earlier position taken by
the Examiner, invoking Official Notice practice, that the limitations therein
were well-known in the art, and therefore the claimed subject matter would
2 Appellant discloses that one approach to generating topographical data is to
derive the data from a model of the aircraft stored in a memory unit. Spec.
,r 16. Two passages in McBroom appear to suggest that patches are
fabricated using known contours of an aircraft. McBroom 2:28-34; 4:46-
50. McBroom, however, discloses that, instead of fabricating a doubling
patch to match the contour of the area surrounding the damaged area, a
number of different patches having a series of curvatures intermediate
various known curvatures be fabricated. Id.
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Appeal2017-003817
Application 14/158,077
have been obvious over McBroom and that which is well-known in the art.
See Final Act. 4--5. The Examiner notes that the matters for which Official
Notice was taken were not traversed by Appellant, and thus are properly
considered Admitted Prior Art. Id. at 6; Ans. 3.
The rejections fail to take into account, however, the difference
between generating a doubling patch whose inner surface matches the
contour of the area surrounding a particular or specific area of an aircraft
that has been damaged, and McBroom, which only specifically teaches
assembling a kit of patches that are fabricated to have curvatures
intermediate various known curvatures. McBroom 2:28-34; 4:46-50.
The rejection of claims 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, and 12 as having been obvious
over McBroom and the AP A is not sustained.
DECISION
We reverse the rejections of claims 1-15.
REVERSED
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