Schlumberger Technology Corporation

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 2, 2021

2019005780 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 2, 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.
14/660,003 03/17/2015 Carlos Boneti IS13.4082-US-NP 9052
48879 7590 03/02/2021
SCHLUMBERGER INFORMATION SOLUTIONS
10001 Richmond Avenue
IP Administration Center of Excellence
HOUSTON, TX 77042
EXAMINER
OCHOA, JUAN CARLOS
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2127
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/02/2021 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):
SMarckesoni@slb.com
USDocketing@slb.com
jalverson@slb.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte CARLOS BONETI, RODNEY LESSARD,
and DEEPA SWAMINATHAN
____________

Appeal 2019-005780
Application 14/660,003
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and
GARTH D. BAER, Administrative Patent Judges.

BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Non-Final Rejection of claims 1–12, 15, 16, and 21–26. We have
jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies International Business Machines
Corporation as the real party in interest. (Appeal Br. 1.)
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THE INVENTION
Appellant’s disclosed and claimed invention is directed to simulating
fluid properties in a production system include receiving data from a sensor.
(Abstract.)
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal:
1. A method for simulating fluid properties in a production
system, comprising:
receiving data from a sensor, the data representing a first
property of a fluid that is measured by the sensor;
estimating a second property of the fluid based at least in
part on the measured first property, wherein the second property
is estimated by a user;
calculating a third property of the fluid using the
estimated second property, wherein the third property is
calculated by a computer comprising a plurality of simulators,
and wherein calculating the third property comprises:
running a first simulation on a first of the plurality of
simulators; and
running a second simulation on a second of the plurality
of simulators, wherein the first and second simulations at least
partially overlap in the time domain; and
determining whether results of the first and second
simulations converge to a common value.
Appeal Br. A-1 (Claims Appendix.)

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REJECTION2
The Examiner rejected claims 1–12, 15, 16, and 21–26 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable by Boneti et al. (US 2014/0303949 A1,
pub. Oct. 9, 2014) (hereinafter “Boneti”), Rossi (US 2012/0095733 A1, pub.
Apr. 19, 2012), and Shetty et al. (US 9,284,820 B2, iss. Mar. 15, 2016)
(hereinafter “Shetty”). (Non-Final Act. 8.)
ISSUES ON APPEAL
Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal and Reply Briefs present the
following issues:3
Issue One: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
Boneti, Rossi, and Shetty teaches or suggests the limitation of “wherein the
second property is estimated by a user,” as recited in independent claim 1,
and the commensurate limitation recited in independent claims 11 and 16.
(Appeal Br. 13–15; Reply Br. 2.)
Issue Two: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
Boneti, Rossi, and Shetty teaches or suggests the limitation of “determining
whether results of the first and second simulations converge to a common
value,” as recited in independent claim 1, and the commensurate limitation
recited in independent claims 11 and 16. (Appeal Br. 15–16; Reply Br. 2–
3.)

2 The claim rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) and 35 U.S.C. § 101 were
withdrawn in the Answer. See Ans. 3.
3 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Feb. 12, 2019); the Reply Brief
(filed July 23, 2019); the Non-Final Office Action (mailed June 13, 2018);
and the Examiner’s Answer (mailed May 22, 2019) for the respective
details.
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ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s
arguments. Arguments Appellant could have made but chose not to make
are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
First Issue
In finding that the combination of Boneti, Rossi, and Shetty teaches or
suggests the independent claim 1 limitation at issue, the Examiner relies on
Rossi’s disclosure of: ESTIMATION module 107 for estimating rates and
pressures with uncertainties, and SIMULATION module 108 for simulating
or making short-term predictions of system behavior, along with uncertainty.
(Non-Final Act. 10; Ans. 5–6; Rossi ¶¶ 84, 31–32, 40, 83.)
Appellant argues that
claim 1 requires that it is the user that estimates the second
property, so absent a clear disclosure that the user in Rossi
utilizes the estimation software module to estimate the second
property of claim 1, the proposed combination still falls short of
establishing a prima facie case of obviousness.
(Reply Br. 2.)
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument. The Examiner finds,
and we agree that
Rossi’s “a user may want to estimate” aided by an estimation
software module [is] the same as “estimated by a user”.
Appellant has given no explicit definition of the claim term
“estimated by a user” that excludes this interpretation.
(Ans. 6, citing Rossi ¶¶ 83–84.) Appellant’s disclosure merely states that
“the user may estimate” (Spec. ¶ 45), with no constraints on how the user
makes an estimate.
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Rossi, however, teaches the importance of user estimation as part of
the discovery process. For example, Rossi teaches user-interaction with
“ESTIMATION module 107” for “us[ing] one type of measurement (e.g.,
pressure and temperature) to estimate another type of measurement (e.g.,
liquid flow rate)” (Rossi ¶ 83), in the context of “mak[ing] use of a
measurement of y (with uncertainty) . . . to learn something about (i.e.,
refine the estimate of) the variables in x.” (Rossi ¶ 87.) Similarly, such
user-interactive discovery used in conjunction with Shetty’s system is
further suggested by Shetty’s SIMULATION module 108 that “allows [for]
so-called ‘what if’ experiments to predict the response to various production
decisions or actions and test for an optimal decision.” (Rossi ¶ 40.)
Second Issue
In finding that the combination of Boneti, Rossi, and Shetty teaches or
suggests the independent claim 1 limitation at issue, the Examiner relies on
Shetty’s disclosure of a general approach to solving the system of non-linear
equations by linearizing the system of equations and constructing a global
matrix solver, and iteratively solving the linear system until the method
converges. (Non-Final Act. 10; Ans. 9–11; Shetty 27:1–12, 2:40–51, 23:35–
48.)
Appellant argues that
Shetty’s disclosure of different simulator subsystems and
convergence of a system of linear equations still does not meet
the limitations of claim 1 with regard to convergence across
multiple simulations. The fact that multiple simulator
subsystems are running in parallel does not render those
multiple subsystems as multiple simulations. The subsystems
collectively implement a single simulation that is converged.
(Reply Br. 2–3.)
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We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument. The Examiner finds,
and we agree, that Shetty teaches or suggests the claim limitation at issue
because Shetty teaches “‘. . . linearizing the system of equations . . . and
iteratively solving the linear system until the method converges.’” (Ans. 9,
citing Shetty 27:5–12.) Particularly, we agree with the Examiner’s findings
that Shetty teaches:
1. “numerical simulation of fluid flow in a fracture network” that involves
“the complex interaction of multiple coupled non-linear equations
governing the flow.” (Ans. 9, citing Shetty 27:1–12.);
2. solving a system of non-linear equations “can include . . . linearizing the
system of equations.” (Ans. 9, citing Shetty 27:1–12.);
3. “a simulation system may include multiple subsystem models” that “can
be connected by one or more junction models” in which “[t]he junction
models can provide connection conditions and boundary conditions of
the simulation system” and the simulation “can involve solving each of
the subsystem models in parallel” (Ans. 9, citing Shetty 2:40–51.); and
4. “starting the non-linear convergence can include choosing an initial guess
as the starting point to solve the multiple subsystem models” and non-
linear governing equations entails “linearization [which] can be
performed individually and result in a system of linear equations for each
subsystem model.” (Ans. 9, citing Shetty 23:35–48, describing Fig. 9.)
The Examiner’s findings identified above are confirmed by Figure 9
of Shetty. Figure 9, reproduced below, “is a flow chart showing an example
process 900 for modeling fluid flow in a subterranean region.” (Shetty
21:18–19.)

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Figure 9 is a flow chart showing an example technique for modeling fluid
flow in a subterranean region.
First, we agree with Appellant that “[t]he subsystems collectively
implement a single simulation that is converged” (Reply Br. 3), as with
respect to Figure 9, Shetty teaches that “[a] solution to the overall
simulation system can be partially or fully obtained or updated at the
considered time step, for example, using the example techniques described
with respect to operations 910–930.” (Shetty 23:26–29 (emphasis added).)
Here though, Shetty teaches the simulation solution is made for each single
time step inside a loop—”[f]or each time step, the overall simulation system
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including multiple subsystem models can be constructed based on dynamics
of the fluid flow related to the considered time step.” (Shetty 23:23–26.)
In other words, a single time step is selected, and then “[a]t [step] 910,
non-linear convergence can be started.” Shetty 23:35. After steps 912–922
are performed,
[a]t [step] 930, it can be determined whether non-linearity
convergence is achieved. If the non-linearity convergence is not
obtained, the example process 900 can go back to 910 to start
the non-linear convergence process again, with an updated
guess of the starting point.
(Shetty 25:55–58.) After “non-linear convergence” is satisfied at step 930
for a given time step,
[a]t [step] 940, it can be determined whether a maximum time
step tmax is reached. The current considered time step can be
compared with tmax. If the considered time step does not exceed
tmax, the example process 900 can update the solution to the
overall simulation system based on the solution obtained at the
currently considered time step, determine a next time step, and
go back to [step] 908 to begin a new iteration for the next time
step.
(Shetty 25:63–26:3.) Thus for a given time step, multiple simulations are
performed, until the “results of the first and second simulations converge to
a common value,” thereby meeting the claim limitation. We are not
persuaded by Appellant’s argument that “the claim does in fact make it clear
that the convergence to a common value refers to a common value for the
third property” (Reply Br. 3), because the claimed “results” are not expressly
equated to the claimed “third property” — for example, the “results of the
first and second simulations” could broadly and reasonably be considered a
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measure of the non-linear convergence criteria of Shetty’s system for each
simulation as it is a simulation result.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claim 1, as well as independent claims 11 and 16 commensurate in scope,
and dependent claims 2–10, 12, 15, and 21–26 not argued separately. See
Appeal Br. 16.

DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–12, 15,
16, 21–26
103 Boneti, Rossi, Shetty 1–12, 15,
16, 21–26

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)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED