ILLINOIS TOOL WORKS, INC.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Aug 27, 2021

2020005819 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 27, 2021)

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.
14/842,160 09/01/2015 Giorgio Grimaldi 738141/09107/66098 6316
148433 7590 08/27/2021
Burr Forman LLP
dba Burr Forman McNair
Bank of America Plaza
101 South Tryon Street, Suite 2610
Charlotte, NC 28280
EXAMINER
LEFF, STEVEN N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1792
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/27/2021 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):
mcnairip@mcnair.net
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GIORGIO GRIMALDI and JOSHUA M. LINTON
Appeal 2020-005819
Application 14/842,160
Technology Center 1700
Before TERRY J. OWENS, JOHN A. EVANS, and
BRIAN D. RANGE, Administrative Patent Judges.
OWENS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), the Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM IN PART.

1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Illinois Tool
Works, Inc. (Appeal Br. 1).
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Application 14/842,160

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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to a food preparation device and method.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A food preparation device comprising:
at least two energy sources;
a chamber into which at least two types of energy are
providable via the at least two energy sources; and
a cooking controller operably coupled to the at least two
energy sources and comprising processing circuitry to
selectively distribute power to respective ones of the at least
two energy sources,
wherein the at least two energy sources comprise a radio
frequency (RF) capacitive heating source and a cold air source,
wherein the RF capacitive heating source comprises a
ground plate and an anode plate disposed parallel to each other
at top and bottom portions of the chamber, respectively, and
wherein the RF capacitive heating source is configured to
cook and thaw a food product disposed in the chamber.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
McKeown US 3,486,023 Dec. 23, 1969
Henry US 3,966,793 June 29, 1976
Wroe US 2001/0004075 A1 June 21, 2001
Ottaway US 2004/0016744 A1 Jan. 29, 2004
Ben-Shmuel US 21009/0236335 A1 Sept. 24, 2009
REJECTIONS
The claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as follows: claims 1,
2, 4–7, and 9–20 over Ben-Shmuel in view of Wroe, or Wroe in view of
Ben-Shmuel; claim 3 over Ben-Shmuel in view of Wroe and Ottaway; and
claim 8 over Ben-Shmuel in view of Wroe, Henry, and McKeown.
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OPINION
The Appellant argues the claims in the following groups: 1) claims 1,
2, 4, 6, 7, and 9–20; 2) claim 5, 3) claim 3; and 4) claim 8 (Appeal Br. 4–
10). We therefore limit our discussion to one claim in the first group, i.e.,
claim 1, and claims 5, 3, and 8. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2013).
Claims 1 and 5
Ben-Shmuel discloses a device for using RF energy to heat foods in a
resonator cavity having any shape (¶¶ 18, 371). RF energy up to 100 kHz or
100 MHz is fed into the cavity using one to six wideband and/or directional
antennas (¶¶ 65, 452). A single antenna can have a bandwidth of 10 MHz to
70 MHz, and multiple antennas can have an overall bandwidth of 100 MHz
(¶¶ 382–384, 390–391). The heater can actively warm, cool or freeze food,
conventional environmental control elements control the cooling and
warming, and external cooling can avoid overheating the outside of the food
(¶¶ 80, 509).
Wroe discloses radio-frequency and microwave-assisted dielectric
heating of ceramics, ceramic-metal composites, metal powder components,
and engineering ceramics using a hybrid RF/microwave furnace (¶¶ 1, 13,
32). Wroe teaches that a typical conventional RF heating system comprises
an RF generator (26) and an RF applicator (28), the applicator comprising
plates (32) between which the material to be heated (30) is placed, one of the
plates being movable relative to the other to enable tuning the system (¶ 51;
Fig. 2).
The Appellant argues that Ben-Shmuel does not actually teach or
suggest cooking or thawing with a heat source that operates below 100 MHz
such as about 10 Hz to about 50 MHz (claim 5) (Appeal Br. 5, 8).
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Ben-Shmuel discloses that use of a prior art antenna having a 10–
70 MHz bandwidth can be useful in the invention (¶¶ 383, 384). Thus, Ben-
Shmuel would have suggested, to one of ordinary skill in the art, use of a
heat source that operates below 100 MHz such as about 10 Hz to about
50 MHz
The Appellant argues that Ben-Shmuel does not disclose a cooking
controller operably coupled to at least two energy sources and comprising
processing circuitry to selectively distribute power to respective ones of the
at least two energy sources (Appeal Br. 5).
Ben-Shmuel’s disclosure that the heater can both heat and actively
cool or freeze food, optionally applying heating and cooling to the same
portion of the oven (¶ 509), would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in
the art, circuitry for selectively distributing power to the energy sources for
both heating and cooling.
The Appellant argues that Wroe is nonanalogous art (Appeal Br. 6–7).
The test of whether a reference is from an analogous art is first,
whether it is within the field of the inventor’s endeavor, and second, if it is
not, whether it is reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which
the inventor was involved. See In re Wood, 599 F.2d 1032, 1036 (CCPA
1979). A reference is reasonably pertinent if, even though it may be in a
different field of endeavor, it is one which, because of the matter with which
it deals, logically would have commended itself to an inventor’s attention in
considering the inventor’s problem. See In re Clay, 966 F.2d 656, 659 (Fed.
Cir. 1992).
In the present case, the inventor is involved with the problem of using
RF energy to heat food in a chamber (2) between parallel plates (11, 12) that
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are movable relative to each other (Spec. ¶ 30; Fig. 1). Thus, Wroe’s
disclosure of using RF energy to heat a material (30) in a chamber (28)
between parallel plates (32) that are movable relative to each other (¶ 51;
Fig. 2) logically would have commended itself to the inventor’s attention in
considering that problem. Consequently, Wroe is analogous art.
The Appellant argues that Wroe is not combinable with Ben-Shmuel
(Appeal Br. 7–8).
Establishing a prima facie case of obviousness requires showing that
one of ordinary skill in the art would have had both an apparent reason or
suggestion to modify the prior art and predictability or a reasonable
expectation of success in doing so. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550
U.S. 398, 418 (2007); In re Vaeck, 947 F.2d 488, 493 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
Ben-Shmuel discloses that the food can be heated between two plates
in a resonator cavity having any shape, including rectangular (¶¶ 371, 452).
One of ordinary skill in the art, therefore, would have had an apparent reason
to heat the food between the parallel plates in the rectangular chamber of the
typical conventional RF heating system disclosed by Wroe (¶ 51; Fig. 2).
Wroe’s indication that the heating is dielectric (¶ 32) and the materials
heatable by the disclosed furnace are not limited to the disclosed ceramics,
ceramic-metal composites, metal powder components, and engineering
ceramics (¶ 1) would have provided one of ordinary skill in the art with a
reasonable expectation of success in heating Ben-Shmuel’s food between
parallel plates in a rectangular chamber.
Claim 3
Claim 3 depends indirectly from claim 1 and requires that the device
comprises a proximity sensor to sense a distance between the ground plate
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and the anode plate.
Ottaway discloses a conveyor oven (10) having an RF energy
source (22a–d) that supplies power to each of one or more pairs of ground
electrodes (15) and high potential electrodes (20a–d) via a variable
impedance device (24a–d) that maintains constant impedance between each
of the one or more pairs of electrodes as the impedance of a product (34)
being heated changes as it moves through the oven (¶¶ 3, 10; Fig. 1).
Ottaway discloses that each high potential electrode can be moved toward or
away from the ground electrode to accommodate products of varying heights
(¶¶ 31–32; Fig. 5). That disclosure would have suggested, to one of ordinary
skill in the art, sensing the distance between the ground and high potential
electrodes to assure that their separation is appropriate for the product’s
height.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded of reversible error in the rejection
of claims 1–7 and 9–20.
Claim 8
Claim 8 depends from claim 1 and requires “a wireless thermal probe
having a quartz-crystal resonator and a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
coil, wherein the quartz-crystal resonator changes quartz resonance
frequency in response to temperature variations, and the NMR coil detects
changes in the quartz resonance frequency.”
Henry applies an alternating current of predetermined frequency to
food moving continuously past a nuclear magnetic resonance sensor and/or a
vector impedance sensor and continuously senses the resulting phase angle
and impedance for use in measuring and controlling the food’s moisture
content (Abstract; col. 2, ll. 42–56).
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McKeown uses quartz crystals to measure energy transfer between a
radiant source and a surface (col. 1, ll. 19–22, 36–41).2
The Examiner concludes (Final 7):
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to teach
a desired sensor as taught by McKeown the motivation being there are
several advantages to using quartz crystals to measure temperature
including increased temperature sensitivity (col. 1 lines 36-45).
Though silent to the NMR coil as taught by Henry, it would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to teach a NMR
coil as is known in the art, for art recognized purpose of detecting
changes of the food during processing and applying a same RF energy
as taught by Ben-Shmuel for cooking and treating food optimally.

That reasoning does not explain how the applied references would
have suggested, to one of ordinary skill in the art, “a wireless thermal probe
having a quartz-crystal resonator and a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
coil, wherein the quartz-crystal resonator changes quartz resonance
frequency in response to temperature variations, and the NMR coil detects
changes in the quartz resonance frequency” as required by the Appellant’s
claim 8. Consequently, we reverse the rejection of that claim.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s rejections are affirmed in part.
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed

2 We do not consider US 2010/0012645 A1 to Baier relied upon by the
Examiner (Final 7) because that reference is not included in the statement of
the rejection and, therefore, is not properly before us. See In re Hoch, 428
F.2d 1341, 1342 n.3 (CCPA 1970).
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8
1, 2, 4–7, 9–
20
103 Ben-Shmuel, Wroe 1, 2, 4–7, 9–
20

3 103 Ben-Shmuel,
Wroe, Ottaway
3
8 103 Ben-Shmuel,
Wroe, Henry,
McKeown
8
Overall
Outcome
1–7, 9–20 8
TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
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)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED IN PART