Ex Parte Vasudevan

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 24, 2017

13185819 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 24, 2017)

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.
6528-002 3074
EXAMINER
HERZFELD, NATHANIEL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3749
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
13/185,819 07/19/2011
24112 7590 07/25/2017
COATS & BENNETT, PLLC
1400 Crescent Green, Suite 300
Cary, NC 27518
Meenatchinathan Vasudevan
07/25/2017 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 MEENATCHINATHAN VASUDEVAN
Appeal 2016-0007511
Application 13/185,819
Technology Center 3700
Before LINDA E. HORNER, JILL D. HILL, and JEFFREY A. STEPHENS,
Administrative Patent Judges.
HORNER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Meenatchinathan Vasudevan (Appellant) seeks our review under
35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-10. Final
Office Action (November 5, 2014) (hereinafter “Final Act.”). We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM-IN-PART.
1 Appellant names Cleaver-Brooks, Inc. as the real party in interest. Appeal
Brief 2 (May 15, 2015) (hereinafter “Appeal Br.”).
Appeal 2016-000751
Application 13/185,819
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellant’s claimed subject matter relates “to oil recovery processes
that treat produced water and utilize a steam generator to produce steam
from the treated produced water and inject the steam into an injection well.”
Spec. 11. Claim 1 is the sole independent claim on appeal and is
reproduced below.
1. A forced circulation steam generator for generating
steam, comprising:
a furnace unit;
the furnace unit including:
a burner;
a plurality of water cooled walls with each water
cooled wall including pipe segments that extend back and
forth across the water cooled wall; and
an evaporator unit including pipe segments that
extend back and forth and wherein the evaporator unit is
disposed within the furnace;
a steam drum;
one or more pumps for pumping water through the water
cooled walls and the evaporator unit;
at least one water feed line operatively connected between
the steam drum and the one or more pumps for directing water
from the steam drum to the one or more pumps;
at least two supply lines operatively interconnected
between the one or more pumps and the water cooled walls and
evaporator unit with one supply line operative to supply water to
the water cooled walls and one supply line operative to supply
water to the evaporator unit;
the burner operative to heat the furnace and the water
passing through the pipe segments of the water cooled walls and
the pipe segments of the evaporator unit to produce a water-
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Application 13/185,819
steam mixture in the water cooled walls and a water-steam
mixture in the evaporator unit;
the forced circulation steam generator configured to limit
the quality of steam produced by the water cooled walls and
evaporator unit to 30% or less quality steam;
one or more lines operatively interconnected between the
furnace and the steam drum for conveying the water-steam
mixtures produced by the water cooled walls and the evaporator
unit from the furnace to the steam drum; and
the steam drum configured to separate steam from water
and to produce 95% or greater quality steam.
Appeal Br. 10-11 (Claims Appendix).
REJECTIONS
The Final Office Action includes the following rejections:
1. Claims 1 and 2 stand rejected under the judicially created doctrine
of obviousness-type double patenting over claims 1,5, and 7 of
allowed application 13/185,797 (hereinafter “the ’797
application”).2
2. Claims 1 and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Minnich et al. (US 2008/0190607 Al, published
August 14, 2008) (“Minnich”) and Horlitz, Jr. et al. (US 4,633,818,
issued January 6, 1987) (“Horlitz”).
2 On November 5, 2014, when the Examiner made the double patenting
rejection, claims 1,5, and 7 of the ’797 application were pending and
allowed. Thus, the Examiner’s rejection was provisional because the claims
had not yet issued. The ’797 application subsequently issued as
US 8,899,326 on December 2, 2014. Accordingly, we consider the rejection
as being no longer provisional.
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Application 13/185,819
3. Claims 2—4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Minnich, Horlitz, and Knauss (US 6,460,490
Bl, issued October 8, 2002) (“Knauss”).
4. Claim 5 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Minnich, Horlitz, Knauss, and Minnich (US 2010/0200231
Al, published August 12, 2010) (“Minnich ’231”).
5. Claims 6-8 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Minnich, Horlitz, and Stone et al. (US 7,533,632
B2, issued May 19, 2009) (“Stone”).
ANALYSIS
First Ground of Rejection: Obviousness-Type Double Patenting
Appellant presents no arguments against the obviousness-type double
patenting rejection of claims 1 and 2 over the now-issued claims of the ’797
application. “If an appellant fails to present arguments on a particular issue
— or, more broadly, on a particular rejection — the Board will not, as a
general matter, unilaterally review those uncontested aspects of the
rejection.” Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1076 (BPAI 2010)
(precedential). Thus, we summarily sustain this rejection.
Second Ground of Rejection: Claims 1 and 9 as unpatentable over Minnich
and Horlitz
The Examiner finds that Minnich teaches a forced circulation steam
generator substantially as set forth in claim 1 except that it “does not
disclose separate water cooled walls and an evaporator unit and all the lines
directed to and away from them.” Final Act. 5-6. The Examiner finds that
“Horlitz teaches a steam generator with back and forth water cooled walls
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Application 13/185,819
(44a, 44b) and a back and forth evaporator unit [(32)].” Id. at 6, Ans. 13.
The Examiner states that it would have been obvious “to modify Minnich
with the teachings of Horlitz to include both water cooled walls and an
evaporator unit in order to make use of the generated hot flue gases from all
sides of the steam generator.” Final Act. 6.
Appellant argues that the Examiner failed to set forth adequate
reasoning to explain why one having ordinary skill in the art would have
been led to modify Minnich with the teaching of Horlitz to result in the
claimed forced circulation steam generator having both water cooled walls
and an evaporator. Appeal Br. 3-6; Reply Br. 1-3. Specifically, Appellant
contends that the Examiner’s reasoning is conclusory and does not explain
what advantages the proposed modification would provide that would have
prompted one having ordinary skill in the art to make the modification.
Appeal Br. 4.
The Examiner responds that “including water cooled walls with an
evaporator would allow more heat from the exhaust gases to be utilized to
evaporate water into steam, which prevents waste of heat and thus improves
overall efficiency. Ans. 11 (the Examiner explaining that Horlitz provides
“two means to evaporate water to fully utilize all of the heat from the flue
gases”). Appellant contends that the Examiner’s assertion of improved
efficiency is conclusory, based on conjecture, and not supported by any
evidence in the record. Reply Br. 1-2.
Minnich relates to a heavy oil recovery process that uses a once
through steam generator (OTSG) 100 to generate steam. Minnich | 50,
Fig. 4. Minnich describes the OTSG as follows:
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Application 13/185,819
OTSG 1000 is a forced circulation type steam generator that
utilizes the high pressure pump 82 to force the feedwater through
heating tubes in the steam generator. Feedwater is pumped
through the tubing and is heated from combustion heat applied
exteriorly of the tubes. Water is partially converted to steam by
the time the fluid exits the heat transfer tubing in the steam
generator. Typically 70% to 80% of the water is converted to
steam through this process.
Id. at | 51. Minnich describes that the water and vapor mixture is then sent
to a separator 76 to separate steam from the water wherein steam that exits
the separator is approximately 98% quality or higher. Id.
Horlitz relates to a “mobile coal-fired fluidized bed furnace system”
that is used to “generate and superheat a vapor for powering a locomotive.”
Horlitz, col. 3,11. 16-19. In particular, Horlitz is directed to a fluidized bed
furnace system that is capable of operating at a variety of elevations,
accommodating tilting and listing motions, and operating over a wide load
range and idling at low power for long periods of time, as the locomotive
travels along a track or sits idle. Id. at col. 1,1. 47 - col. 2,1. 24. Horlitz
discloses that the furnace enclosure is “formed of a plurality of fluid-cooled
tubes enclosing a furnace chamber having an open floor at the bottom
thereof, an evaporator section having a gas inlet opening to the furnace
chamber, and an economizer section having a gas inlet opening to said
evaporator section.” Id. at col. 3,11. 22-21. A superheater tube bundle also
is disposed within the furnace chamber. Id. at col. 3,11. 36-38.
We are persuaded by Appellant that the Examiner’s reasoning for
modifying the OTSG of Minnich with the furnace of Horlitz to “make use of
the generated hot flue gases from all sides of the steam generator” (Final
Act. 6) is too “vague and ambiguous” (Appeal Br. 5) to provide rational
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underpinnings for the proposed modification to Minnich. In particular, the
evaporator of the furnace of Horlitz is disposed centrally and does not
appear to be part of the side structure of Horlitz’s combustion chamber.
Horlitz, Fig. 5. As such, the Examiner’s reasoning based on using hot flue
gases “from all sides of the steam generator” does not explain why one
having ordinary skill in the art would have been led to use an evaporator in
Minnich’s steam generator.
We also are persuaded by Appellant that that the Examiner’s further
explanation provided in the Answer for modifying the OTSG of Minnich
with the furnace of Horlitz to “allow[] more water to be evaporated using the
same amount of exhaust gases which improves efficiency and prevents
wasted heat energy” (Ans. 10) is based on unsupported “conjecture” (Reply
Br. 2) and fails to provide rational underpinnings for the proposed
modification to Minnich. In particular, Minnich explains that the OTSG is
the type of steam generator that is most often used for steam injection
enhanced oil recovery and that it converts approximately 80% of the
feedwater to steam. Minnich 113. In the embodiment of Figure 4 of
Minnich, 70%-80% of the water is converted to steam in OTSG 100. Id. at
151. Horlitz does not provide any indication of the percentage of water
converted to steam in its furnace or the amount of energy required to make
this conversion. Thus, we find insufficient support in the record for the
Examiner’s finding that the fluid cooled tubes and evaporator of Horlitz
“allow[] more water to be evaporated using the same amount of exhaust
gases” as compared to the OTSG of Minnich. For these reasons, we do not
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Application 13/185,819
sustain the rejection of independent claim 1 and its dependent claim 9 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Minnich and Horlitz.
Remaining Grounds of Rejection
The remaining grounds of rejection of dependent claims 2-8 and 10
are based on the same proposed modification of Minnich with the water
cooled tubes and evaporator of Horlitz that we found deficient in the
rejection of independent claim 1. Final Act. 7-12. The Examiner does not
rely on Knauss, Minnich ’231, or Stone to cure this deficiency. Id. As such,
for the same reasons set forth above for claim 1, we likewise do not sustain
the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of dependent claims 2-8 and 10.
DECISION
The rejection of claims 1 and 2 under the doctrine of obviousness-type
double patenting is affirmed.
The rejections of claims 1-10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are reversed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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