Rolls-Royce CorporationDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 27, 20202019001610 (P.T.A.B. May. 27, 2020) 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. 14/133,230 12/18/2013 Joseph Peter Henderkott 1106-050US01/RCA-10794 4543 28863 7590 05/27/2020 SHUMAKER & SIEFFERT, P. A. 1625 RADIO DRIVE SUITE 100 WOODBURY, MN 55125 EXAMINER BOYLAN, JAMES T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2486 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/27/2020 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): pairdocketing@ssiplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JOSEPH PETER HENDERKOTT, PRAMOD KHANDELWAL, DANNY RAY CARR, TIMOTHY PAUL FUESTING, and JEFFREY F. RHODES Appeal 2019-001610 Application 14/133,230 Technology Center 2400 Before ALLEN R. MACDONALD, ADAM J. PYONIN, and IFTIKHAR AHMED, Administrative Patent Judges. AHMED, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–7 and 9–20, which are all of the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “Applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies Rolls-Royce Corporation as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2019-001610 Application 14/133,230 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claimed subject matter relates to “nondestructive testing of a component,” for example, using flash thermography and flow thermography techniques. Spec. ¶¶ 2, 4. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below with certain disputed limitations emphasized: 1. A method for nondestructive testing of a component, comprising: flashing the component using a flash lamp configured for flash thermography; collecting first image data regarding a response of the component only to the flashing of the flash lamp using an infrared camera from each perspective of a first plurality of perspectives of the component, wherein each perspective is at a different degree of at least one of relative rotation or translation between the infrared camera and the component; generating a first composite image of the component based on the first image data; flowing a fluid through the component for flow thermography; collecting second image data regarding a response of the component only to the flowing of the fluid through the component using the infrared camera from each perspective of a second plurality of perspectives of the component, wherein each perspective of the second plurality of perspectives is at a different degree of at least one of relative rotation or translation between the infrared camera and the component; and generating a second composite image of the component based on the second image data. Appeal 2019-001610 Application 14/133,230 3 REFERENCES The Examiner relies upon the following prior art references: Name Reference Date Amano US 6,714,281 B1 Mar. 30, 2004 Prokoski US 7,822,263 B1 Oct. 26, 2010 Hooker US 2003/0179920 A1 Sept. 25, 2003 Cleveland US 2004/0080623 A1 Apr. 29, 2004 Rothenfusser US 2007/0288177 A1 Dec. 13, 2007 Chen US 2011/0102542 A1 May 5, 2011 Jahnke US 2013/0026365 A1 Jan. 31, 2013 Couse US 2013/0269436 A1 Oct. 17, 2013 Müller Müller, Real-time image processing and fusion for a new high-speed dual-band infrared camera, 6543 Proc. of SPIE, 1–8 2007 REJECTIONS Claims 1–3, 5, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, and Couse. Final Act. 5. Claims 4 and 6 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse, Rothenfusser. Final Act. 22. Claim 7 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse, Rothenfusser, and Amano. Final Act. 29. Claims 9 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse, and Müller. Final Act. 30. Appeal 2019-001610 Application 14/133,230 4 Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse, Müller, and Prokoski. Final Act. 32. Claim 12 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse, Müller, and Cleveland. Final Act. 33–34. Claims 13 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Jahnke, Couse, and Müller. Final Act. 34– 35. Claims 15 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Jahnke, Hooker, Couse, and Müller. Final Act. 38. Claim 17 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Jahnke, Couse, Müller, and Rothenfusser. Final Act. 42. Claims 18 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Jahnke, Couse, Müller, Hooker, and Chen. Final Act. 43. ISSUE Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of cited references teaches or suggests “collecting second image data regarding a response of the component only to the flowing of the fluid through the component,” as recited in claim 1? ANALYSIS Independent claim 1 recites “collecting second image data regarding a response of the component only to the flowing of the fluid through the Appeal 2019-001610 Application 14/133,230 5 component.” Appeal Br. 24 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). Independent claims 13 and 20, the only other independent claims, recite similar limitations.2 The Examiner finds that the combination of Jahnke and Couse teaches or suggests this limitation. Final Act. 6–11. According to the Examiner, Jahnke discloses “excitation by means of hot air and recording of the resultant heat flux by an infrared camera.” which teaches collecting image data regarding a response of the component to the flowing of a fluid through the component. Id. at 7 (citing Jahnke ¶ 3). The Examiner determines that Jahnke does not teach using “only” a fluid flow for this step, but finds that Couse teaches that aspect because it discloses “[a]ctive [t]hermography that includes multiple stimulations using different excitation source, detecting the thermal response, and determining the existence of defects based on the detected thermal responses.” Id. at 11 (citing Couse ¶ 74). The Examiner finds that it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the method disclosed by Jahnke adding the teachings of Couse “to improve upon the defect detection process by performing multi-modal active thermography testing of a component (i.e., different stimulation sources) to determine different types of defects.” Id. at 11. 2 Claim 13 recites a method including a step of “collecting second image data regarding a response of the component only to the flowing of the fluid through the internal passages,” and claim 20 recites a system comprising an infrared camera configured to capture “second image data from only the flow thermography from each perspective of a second plurality of perspectives of the component.” Appeal Br. 36, 39 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). Appeal 2019-001610 Application 14/133,230 6 Appellant argues that none of the applied references teach or suggest using only flow thermography in the second step, separate from using only flash thermography in the first step. Appeal Br. 11. Appellant contends that Couse merely teaches “non-destructive testing of interconnects using active thermography that includes multiple stimulations of [a component] using different excitation sources,” but that “Couse appears to be silent as to flow thermography.” Id. According to Appellant, Couse does not teach or suggest “that the multiple stimulations would be used individually such that first image data would represent a response of the [component] to only a first excitation source and second image data would represent a response of the [component] to only a second excitation source.” Reply Br. 8 (some emphasis added). Appellant further argues that a person of ordinary skill in the art would not have a reason “to modify Jahnke’s testing program to perform a technique including collecting second image data regarding a response of the component only to the flowing of a fluid.” Appeal Br. 12. The Examiner counters that Appellant’s arguments are directed to each of the references individually, and “one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references.” Ans. 6 (citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986)). The Examiner also finds that Couse “provides rationale for providing two separate simulation sources when capturing two sets of image data respectively.” Id. We agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not sufficiently explained how the combination of Jahnke and Couse teaches or suggests “collecting second image data regarding a response of the component only to Appeal 2019-001610 Application 14/133,230 7 the flowing of the fluid through the component.” Although we agree with the Examiner that it is improper to attack references individually where the rejection is based on combinations of references, Appellant’s argument is directed at the combination of Jahnke and Couse as it would have been understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art. See Appeal Br. 12; Reply Br. 8. The Examiner determines that Jahnke alone does not teach or suggest collecting image data from a component’s responses exclusively to one excitation source. Final Act. 10–11. But Couse does not teach or suggest that aspect of the disputed limitation either. Couse discloses: Further embodiments may include non-destructive testing of interconnects using active thermography that includes multiple stimulations of the interconnect using different excitation sources, such as an optical radiation source and an inductive excitation source, detecting the thermal response of the interconnect from each of the stimulations by the multiple excitation sources, and determining the existence of defects in the interconnect based on the detected thermal responses. In one example, a stimulation from an optical radiation source (e.g., a flashlamp) may be used to detect a first defect or set of defects (e.g., lateral cracks, protective coating defects, etc.) and stimulation from an inductive excitation source may be used to detect a second defect or set of defects (e.g., through cracks). Couse ¶ 74 (emphasis added). The Examiner has not sufficiently established that Couse’s disclosure of different excitation sources used to detect different defects also teaches or suggests running those simulations separately from each other, in the manner claimed by Appellant. Moreover, Couse also does not teach or suggest using flow thermography for collecting image data. Appeal Br. 12. We, therefore, agree with Appellant that the Examiner has failed to explain sufficiently how the combination of Jahnke and Couse teaches “collecting second image data regarding a response of the Appeal 2019-001610 Application 14/133,230 8 component only to the flowing of the fluid through the component,” as recited in claim 1. The Examiner also does not rely on Hooker and Chen to teach the disputed claim limitation in support of the obviousness rejection based on the four references. Accordingly, we reverse the rejections of independent claims 1, 13, and 20, and their dependent claims 2–7, 9–12, and 14–19. CONCLUSION For the reasons above, we reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–7 and 9–20. Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § References Affirmed Reversed 1–3, 5, 20 103(a) Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse 1–3, 5, 20 4, 6 103(a) Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse, Rothenfusser 4, 6 7 103(a) Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse, Rothenfusser, Amano 7 9, 11 103(a) Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse, Müller 9, 11 10 103(a) Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse, Müller, Prokoski 10 12 103(a) Jahnke, Hooker, Chen, Couse, Müller, Cleveland 12 13, 14 103(a) Jahnke, Couse, Müller 13, 14 15, 16 103(a) Jahnke, Couse, Müller, Hooker 15, 16 17 103(a) Jahnke, Couse, Müller, Rothenfusser 17 18, 19 103(a) Jahnke, Couse, Müller, Hooker, Chen 18, 19 Appeal 2019-001610 Application 14/133,230 9 Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § References Affirmed Reversed Overall Outcome 1–7, 9–20 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation