Ex Parte Yardibi et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 30, 201713169220 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 30, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 13/169,220 06/27/2011 Tarik Yardibi 246663-1 (GEL8083.292) 1578 62204 7590 12/04/2017 GE GLOBAL PATENT OPERATION GE LICENSING (62204) 901 MAIN AVENUE NORWALK, CT 06851 EXAMINER HULKA, JAMES R ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3645 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/04/2017 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): rlt @ zpspatents. com docket@fyiplaw.com gpo.mail@ge.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte TARIK YARDIBI, MEENA GANESH, and TIMOTHY LEE JOHNSON Appeal 2017-001311 Application 13/169,22c1 Technology Center 3600 Before JOHN C. KERINS, MICHAEL L. WOODS, and FREDERICK C. LANEY, Administrative Patent Judges. LANEY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Kevin Patrick Kelley (Appellant) appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final decision rejecting claims 1—12 and 14—25.2 We have jurisdiction over this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is General Electric Company. Appeal Br. 2 (entered June 21, 2016). 2 Claim 13 has been canceled. Appeal Br. 25. Appeal 2017-001311 Application 13/169,220 INVENTION Appellants’ invention relates “to fault monitoring and diagnostics in electrical substations.” Spec. 1. Claims 1,16, and 24 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter and is reproduced below. 1. A fault monitoring system for an electrical substation comprising: a plurality of acoustic sensors placed around a substation area boundary and configured to measure acoustic pressure waves; processing circuitry configured to localize and identify faults m the substation, wherein the processing circuitry comprises: a sound source localization module to identify an area of a sound source based on the acoustic pressure waves; a beamforming module to provide enhanced acoustic pressure waves by eliminating at least one of a background noise and an interfering noise from the acoustic pressure waves; and a component signature classification module to compare enhanced acoustic pressure waves with component signatures to classify the acoustic pressure waves into various events to detect faults in the electrical substation. Appeal Br. 23 (Claims App.). REJECTIONS The following rejections are before us for review: I. The Examiner rejected claims 1—12 and 14—22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Zhao (Substation Monitoring by Acoustic Emission Techniques, pp. 28—34, 2 Appeal 2017-001311 Application 13/169,220 IEE Proc.-Sci. Meas. Technol., Vol. 148, No. 1, Jan. 2001), Bose (US 2011/0012603 Al, pub. Jan. 20, 2011), and Haulick (US 2008/0285772 Al, pub. Nov. 20, 2008). II. The Examiner rejected claims 23—25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Zhao, Bose, Haulick, and Zhao ’097 (US 2006/0164097, pub. July 27, 2006). ANALYSIS Rejection I Addressing the determination claims 1 and 16 would have been an obvious combination in view of Zhao, Bose, and Haulick, Appellants assert the Examiner erred because the references, either alone or in combination, do not evidence it was known: (1) to have “a component signature classification module to compare enhanced acoustic pressure waves with component signatures to classify the acoustic pressure waves into various events to detect faults in the electrical substation” (claim 1); or (2) to “classify[] enhanced acoustic pressure waves into various events based on the comparison of the enhanced acoustic pressure waves with the component signatures, so as to provide for a fault detection in the electrical substation” (claim 16). Appeal Br. 8. To establish these limitations, the Examiner cites to Figures 11, 12, and paragraphs 54—56 of Bose. Final Act. 3. The Examiner finds Bose, as well as Zhao, teach “using a signature classification module (comparison to a database) to help identify the faults.” Id. at 11. According to Appellants, however, Zhao merely teaches detecting [acoustic energy (“AE”)] activity levels over long periods and monitoring variation in these AE levels to evaluate a general trend of the activity, and as Bose 3 Appeal 2017-001311 Application 13/169,220 merely teaches a method of monitoring a protective relay system that includes steps of sensing signal currents for identifying a current signature portion therein and comparing the signature current portion against a reference current signature to identify an undesired operating condition, the resulting combination would not teach or suggest these claimed limitations of claims 1 and 16. Appeal Br. 10. Disagreeing with Appellants’ contentions, the Examiner reaffirms paragraph 56 of Bose “clearly teaches acoustic wave signature classification as described in [AJppellant’s [c]laim 1 and 16.” Ans. 13. After considering the weight of the evidence, we find Appellants’ contentions more persuasive for the following reasons. Bose addresses “a need for improvement regarding the ability to monitor and analyze information collected from sensors coupled to protective relay systems to detect and identify abnormal operating conditions.” Bose 17. Summarizing the invention, Bose describes “a method of monitoring a protective relay system” that senses and analyzes “current flowing from a protective relay.” Id. at || 8—9. Figures 11, 12, and paragraphs 54—55 of Bose disclose a specific process for sensing and analyzing a signal current flowing from a protective relay, which Appellants correctly characterize as “identifying a first signature portion of the first signal current. with the first signature portion being compared against a reference signature to identify an undesired operating condition.” Appeal Br. 7. Although Bose’s paragraphs 54 and 55 teach “using a signature classification module (comparison to a database) to help identify [] faults” (Final Act. 11), they do so in the context of sensing and evaluating electrical current without any suggested application to sound waves. These 4 Appeal 2017-001311 Application 13/169,220 paragraphs fail to demonstrate a previous recognition by skilled artisans that this signature classification module is adaptable to comparing enhanced acoustic pressure waves within an electrical substation environment. Nor does paragraph 56 of Bose suggest such an application. Although this paragraph indicates, “[pjattern recognition programs are known in the art and have been used for numerous application,” including to “identify sea creatures from their acoustic patterns,” it does not evidence an appreciation for its applicability to detect faults within an electrical substation using the acoustic pressure waves generated within that environment. Moreover, we do not agree Zhao supports a finding that skilled artisans recognized the applicability of pattern recognition programs to acoustic pressure waves in a substation context. Zhao actually suggests an appreciation for such an application was missing. In particular, Zhao states, “[a]s the exact position of an emitting source is rarely known, it is not practical to attempt to calculate the magnitude of a discharge from detected acoustic emissions.” Zhao p. 28 (emphasis added). Zhao further teaches that the specific characteristics of the acoustic waves themselves are less important because “it is the general trend of the [acoustic] activity that is used to indicate potential problems.” Id. According to Zhao, “[i]n reality, it is the trend rather than the absolute levels [of the acoustic pressure waves] “which are of critical importance.” Id. Zhao teaches a system that “detects [acoustical] activity levels over long periods” and focuses its evaluation on the trend of acoustical activity to indicate potential problems, rather than a system that categorizes the sound waves themselves to identify potential faults in an electrical substation. Id. 5 Appeal 2017-001311 Application 13/169,220 When viewing the references cited by the Examiner as a whole, we are not persuaded the Examiner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that Bose, Zhao, or some combination thereof, disclose comparing enhanced acoustic pressure waves with component signatures to classify the acoustic pressure waves into various events to detect faults in the electrical substation. As a result, we are persuaded by Appellants’ argument that the Examiner has failed to show that each of the elements of claims 1 and 16 were known in the prior art. Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 and 16, as well as claims 2—12, 14, 15, and 17—22 depending therefrom. Rejection II Because claim 23 depends from claim 1 and the Examiner does not rely on Zhao ’097 to cure the deficiencies discuss above (see supra Rejection I), we do not sustain the rejection of claim 23. Similarly, claim 24 recites, “in comparing the enhanced acoustic pressure waves with component signatures, the component signature classification module compares a frequency of the enhanced acoustic pressure waves with component signatures.” Appeal Br. 27 (Claims App.). The Examiner relies again on Bose to disclose this limitation. See Final Act. 9—10. Therefore, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 24, and claim 25 depending therefrom, for the same reasons discussed above (see supra Rejection I) in the context of claims 1 and 16. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—12 and 14—25 is reversed. REVERSED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation