Ex Parte VogelDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 19, 201813839235 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 19, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/839,235 03/15/2013 23721 7590 04/23/2018 GEORGE R. CORRIGAN CORRIGAN LAW OFFICE 2168 COLLADAY POINT DRIVE STOUGHTON, WI 53589 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Bernard J. Vogel 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. ITW60901 9892 EXAMINER MAYE,AYUBA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3742 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/23/2018 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): george.corrigan@corrigan.pro gcorrigan@new.rr.com kari.brekke@corrigan.pro PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BERNARD J. VOGEL Appeal2017-004830 Application 13/839,235 Technology Center 3700 Before MICHAEL L. HOELTER, JILL D. HILL, and BRENT M. DOUGAL, Administrative Patent Judges. DOUGAL, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-22. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to a welding-type power supply. Claims 1 and 14 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A welding-type power supply comprising: Appeal2017-004830 Application 13/839,235 a controller, having a preregulator control output and an output converter control output; a preregulator disposed to receive a range of inputs voltages and to receive the preregulator control output, and to provide a preregulator output signal, wherein the preregulator includes a plurality of stacked boost circuits; a preregulator bus, disposed to receive the preregulator output signal; and an output converter, disposed to receive the preregulator bus and to receive the output converter control output, and to provide a welding type power output, wherein the output converter includes at least one stacked inverter circuit. EVIDENCE The evidence relied upon by the Examiner is: Geissler Thommes Kooken US 6,815,639 B2 US 7,049,546 B2 US 8,785,816 B2 REJECTIONS Nov. 9, 2004 May 23, 2006 July 22, 2014 Claims 1-22 are provisionally rejected under nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of Application No. 14/535,994 and Kooken. Claims 1-11and14--21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Geissler and Kooken. Claims 12, 13, and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Geissler, Kooken, and Thommes. 2 Appeal2017-004830 Application 13/839,235 Nonstatutory Double Patenting OPINION We commonly determine that it is premature to address provisional nonstatutory double patenting rejections on appeal. Ex parte Moncla, No. 2009-006448, 3 (BP AI June 22, 2010). However, here we note that Appellant filed a terminal disclaimer on February 10, 2016. The Examiner's Advisory Action responding to Appellant's response of the same date does not acknowledge or address the filing of the terminal disclaimer. Nor does the Examiner's Answer acknowledge or address the filing of the terminal disclaimer. This appears to be an oversight by the Examiner. Because the Examiner provides no reasoning why the terminal disclaimer is inadequate, and we see none, we determine that the nonstatutory double patenting rejection is moot. 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) Appellant argues that the Examiner ignores an express definition in the Specification of the term "stacked inverter circuit" and that the cited prior art does not teach or suggest a "stacked inverter circuit" under this definition. Appeal Br. 11-12; Reply Br. 2. In particular, the Specification states: "Stacked inverter circuit, as used herein, is two inverter circuits with the primary side switches connected in series." Id. (citing Spec. i-f 47). The Examiner argues that because the "claim does not explicitly define [the] type of at least one stacked inverter circuit, ... Geissler, meets the claim limitation. Ans. 12. The United States Patent and Trademark Office gives claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification, reading 3 Appeal2017-004830 Application 13/839,235 claim language in light of the Specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). The Examiner's rejection of the definition in the Specification is clear error. As the Examiner has not identified how the prior art teaches a "stacked inverter circuit" consistent with how that term is expressly defined in the Specification, we do not sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejections. DECISION The Examiner's rejection of claims 1-22 under nonstatutory double patenting is moot. The Examiner's rejections of claims 1-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are reversed. REVERSED 4 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation