Ex Parte VirklerDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 31, 201813713257 (P.T.A.B. May. 31, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 13/713,257 12/13/2012 Scott D. Virkler 54549 7590 06/04/2018 CARLSON, GASKEY & OLDS/PRATT & WHITNEY 400 West Maple Road Suite 350 Birmingham, MI 48009 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. 57719US02; 67097-2224PUS1 CONFIRMATION NO. 8706 EXAMINER DAVIS, JASON GREGORY ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3745 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/04/2018 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): ptodocket@cgolaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SCOTT D. VIRKLER Appeal2017-006700 Application 13/713,257 Technology Center 3700 Before LINDA E. HORNER, BENJAMIN D. M. WOOD, and BRETT C. MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judges. MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal2017-006700 Application 13/713,257 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner's rejection of claims 1---6, 8-11, and 13-24, the only claims currently pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We REVERSE. THE INVENTION Appellant's claims are directed generally to a high pressure rotor disk used in the turbine section of a gas turbine engine. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A gas turbine engine comprising: a compressor section including a high pressure compressor and a low pressure compressor; a combustor in fluid communication with the compressor section; a turbine section in fluid communication with the combustor, wherein the turbine section includes a high pressure turbine driving the high pressure compressor and a low pressure turbine driving the low pressure compressor, wherein at least one of the high pressure turbine and the high pressure compressor includes a disk having a bore diameter (D) related to a bore width (W) according to a ratio (D/W) between 1.25 and 1.65. REFERENCE The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Adams US 2012/0291449 Al Nov. 22, 2012 2 Appeal2017-006700 Application 13/713,257 REJECTION The Examiner made the following rejection: Claims 1-6, 8-11, and 13-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Adams. Final Action 3. ANALYSIS The Examiner finds that Adams teaches all of the limitations of claim 1, but fails to specifically disclose the claimed ratio of the bore diameter to bore width. Final Action 4-5. The Examiner cites "engineering expedient" as the basis for changing various parameters and also relies on paragraph 45 of Adams, which merely states that all of the "parameters can be varied simultaneously to change the weight of the turbine, its efficiency, its manufacturing cost, the degree of difficulty in packaging the low pressure turbine section in the core cowling and its durability." Id. at 5-6. Nothing in this paragraph of Adams, however, discloses any acknowledgement of the claimed ratio or how it specifically would affect the performance of the turbine. The Examiner then concludes that "[i]t would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to modify the disk of Adams by changing the bore diameter, bore width, live rim diameter, and outer diameter" so as to meet the claims. Id. at 5. In In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456 (CCPA 1955), the court set forth the rule that the discovery of an optimum value of a variable in a known process is normally obvious. See also In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272,276 (CCPA 1980). Exceptions to this general rule include where the parameter optimized was not recognized in the art to be a result effective variable and where the results of optimizing a variable, which was known to be result effective, 3 Appeal2017-006700 Application 13/713,257 were unexpectedly good. In re Antonie, 559 F.2d 618,621 (CCPA 1977), and In re Waymouth, 499 F.2d 1273, 1276 (CCPA 1974). Before concluding that the claimed ratio is the product of routine optimization, it must be established that the functional relationship between bore diameter and bore width was known in the art and that these two variables would have been obvious variables to attempt to optimize in relation to each other. See, e.g., In re Antonie, 559 F.2d at 620. Adams does not provide any teaching of that relationship and the Examiner has not cited any other record evidence showing that the claimed ratio was known to be a result effective variable. As such, the Examiner failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that one having ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to try adjusting either or both of bore width and bore diameter to achieve the claimed ratio. The Examiner further asserts that Appellant has failed to show that the claimed ratio has any criticality. Ans. 4. While this may be true, such a rebuttal is only necessary when the Examiner has fulfilled the duty of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness, thus shifting the burden of rebuttal to the Appellant. Because we conclude that the Examiner failed to establish a prima facie case of obviousness, we need not address the sufficiency of any rebuttal thereto. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection over Adams. DECISION For the above reasons, we REVERSE the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1---6, 8-11, and 13-24. REVERSED 4 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation