SCHOTT AG

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

May 6, 2020

14926570 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 6, 2020)

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.
14/926,570 10/29/2015 Bernhard Hunzinger 2133.295USU 4054
27623 7590 05/06/2020
OHLANDT, GREELEY, RUGGIERO & PERLE, LLP
ONE LANDMARK SQUARE, 10TH FLOOR
STAMFORD, CT 06901
EXAMINER
HOFFMANN, JOHN M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1741
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/06/2020 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BERNHARD HUNZINGER, DORIS MOSELER,
FRANK BÜLLESFELD, and ULRICH LANGE
Appeal 2019-004255
Application 14/926,570
Technology Center 1700
Before JEFFREY T. SMITH, LINDA M. GAUDETTE, and
BRIAN D. RANGE, Administrative Patent Judges.
GAUDETTE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL1
The Appellant2 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
decision finally rejecting claims 1–24 and 28.3
We AFFIRM IN PART.

1 This Decision includes citations to the following documents: Specification
filed Oct. 29, 2015 (“Spec.”); Final Office Action dated Apr. 10, 2018
(“Final”); Appeal Brief filed Dec. 3, 2018 (“Appeal Br.”); Examiner’s
Answer dated Mar. 6, 2019 (“Ans.”); and Reply Brief filed May 7, 2019
(“Reply Br.”).
2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37
C.F.R. § 1.42. The Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Schott
AG. Appeal Br. 1.
3 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
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Application 14/926,570

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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
According to the Specification, “[g]lass ceramics are used in a variety
of technical applications,” such as cooktop covers. Spec. ¶ 3. “[A] glass
which can be transformed into a glass ceramic by a crystallization process
and ceramization is generally referred to as green glass.” Id. A conventional
process for producing a glass ceramic cooktop cover “typically involves
melting of a glass, rolling of the molten glass into a plate shape, and
subsequent ceramization in a separate ceramization furnace.” Id. According
to the Specification, a drawback of conventional rolling processes is that
“thin glass ceramic sheets of a thickness of less than 1 mm cannot be
produced.” Id. ¶ 5.
One known technique for reducing sheet thickness is redrawing. Id.
¶¶ 9–11.
In a redrawing process, a piece of glass is partially heated and
drawn longitudinally using appropriate mechanical equipment.
If the preform is advanced into a heating zone at a constant
velocity and the heated glass is drawn at a constant velocity the
result will be a reduction of the cross-sectional shape of the
preform that depends on the ratio of the velocities.

Id. ¶ 28. However, the prior art processes that use a redrawing technique are
said to be “complex and expensive,” and “only cause a small modification in
the geometry of the preform.” Id. ¶ 11.
The invention is said to provide an efficient method for producing a
ceramizable green glass component, “in particular a sheet- or plate-shaped
ceramizable green glass component which can be used for producing flat
glass ceramic articles” (id. ¶ 12) having “a small thickness, high
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homogeneity, and high surface quality” (id. ¶ 14). Claim 1, the sole
independent claim on appeal, is reproduced below:
1. A method for producing a glass ceramic article,
comprising the steps of:
preparing a glass melt of ceramizable glass;
producing, from the glass melt, a ceramizable green glass
body as a preform;
providing the preform to a redrawing apparatus;
heating at least a portion of the preform;
redrawing the preform into a ceramizable green glass
component, wherein the ceramizable green glass component has
a crystalline content of less than 20 vol%.
Appeal Br. 18 (Claims Appendix).
REFERENCES
The Examiner relies on the following prior art as evidence of
unpatentability:
Name Reference Date
Beall
Waniuk
US 4,467,039
US 9,004,151 B2
Aug. 21, 1984
Apr. 14, 2015
Helvajian
Bocko
Bisson
US 2002/0139769 A1
US 2004/0197575 A1
US 2010/0281921 A1
Oct. 3, 2002
Oct. 7, 2004
Nov. 11, 2010

REJECTIONS
1. Claims 7–9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as indefinite.4

4 The Examiner withdrew the rejection of claim 4 as indefinite. Advisory
Action dated July 3, 2018. The Examiner has also withdrawn the rejection of
claim 9 as indefinite due to the language “the temperature critical for
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2. Claims 1–6 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) as
anticipated by Bisson.
3. Claims 1, 20, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) as
anticipated by Bocko.
4. Claims 7–9, 16–19, and 21–24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as unpatentable over Bisson.
5. Claims 11–14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Bisson in view of Letz.
6. Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Bisson in view of Helvajian.

OPINION
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102(a), 103
The Examiner rejected claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) as
anticipated by Bisson and as anticipated by Bocko. See Final 5–6, 9. The
Appellant acknowledges that Bisson discloses a method for producing “a
glass and/or glass-ceramic having one or more layers of conductive oxides,
semiconductors, or a combination thereof applied thereto” (Bisson ¶ 136).
Appeal Br. 10. The Appellant acknowledges that Bocko discloses that a
redraw-type process may be used to produce a laminated sheet made of
glasses or glass ceramics. Appeal Br. 11 (citing Bocko ¶ 50). The Appellant
argues, however, that the Examiner’s evidence is insufficient to support
findings that Bisson and Bocko disclose redrawing techniques that produce a

crystallization.” Ans. 3; see Final 2. Because claim 9 depends from claim 7,
it remains rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b). Ans. 3.
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“ceramizable green glass component ha[ving] a crystalline content of less
than 20 vol%” (claim 1). Id.
The Examiner contends that Bisson paragraph 136 “points to any
suitable glass and/or glass-ceramic material” which “conveys the necessary
precursor for glass-ceramics.” Ans. 18–19. The Examiner contends that
Bocko paragraph 67 discloses “‘precursor glass’ (i.e. the ceramizable green
glass).” Id. 19. The Examiner argues that the term “glass” “conveys
substantially 0% crystalline” material, which meets the claim 1 limitation of
“a crystalline content of less than 20 vol%.” Id. at 18–19.
For the reasons discussed below, we agree with the Appellant that the
Examiner’s evidence and reasoning is not sufficient to support findings that
Bisson’s and Bocko’s methods produce a “ceramizable green glass
component ha[ving] a crystalline content of less than 20 vol%” (claim 1).
The Specification includes the following definitions and description:
“[G]reen glass refers to a glass which is directly derived from the glass
melt.” Spec. ¶ 20 “[C]eramizable green glass in the context of the invention
means that this green glass is suited to be ceramized in a ceramization
process and to be converted into a glass ceramic, and also that such
ceramization process has just not been performed yet.” Id. (emphasis added)
“[F]or the purposes of the invention a ceramizable green glass body [or
‘preform’] is a glass article which can be converted into a glass ceramic
article by a subsequent ceramization process.” Id. ¶ 21 (emphasis added);
see id. ¶ 25. A “ceramizable green glass component” is formed by redrawing
a “ceramizable green glass body.” Id. ¶ 25 (emphasis added). “[T]he green
glass reshaped by the redrawing process, is likewise a ceramizable green
glass,” which means that “the redrawing is preferably performed without
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initiating a ceramization process.” Id. ¶ 26. In a ceramization process, the
glass is heated to a temperature that promotes crystal growth, producing a
glass ceramic article. Id. ¶¶ 23, 25. “After ceramization, the glass ceramic
article may have a crystalline content of at least 20 vol%, preferably at least
50 vol%, and more preferably at least 90 vol%.” Id. ¶ 154; see also id. ¶ 108.
According to the Specification, known prior art methods used high
temperatures prior to redrawing, resulting in crystallization of the green
glass during the redrawing process. Id. ¶ 17. The premature crystallization,
in turn, resulted in cracking of the green glass body or breakage during
ceramization. Id. The Specification discloses that the inventive method “for
redrawing ceramizable green glass bodies is distinguished by the fact that
the deformation zone is very small compared with the prior art. . . . [I]t is
thus possible to subject to a redrawing process even a green glass suitable
for ceramization, without . . . initiating an undesired and/or uncontrolled
ceramization.” Id. ¶ 35. “The deformation zone refers to the portion of the
preform . . . [having] a thickness between 0.95*D and 1.05*d, and . . . a
height of not more than 50*D” (id. ¶ 34), where “D” is the ceramizable
green glass body’s mean thickness and “d” is the post-redrawing mean
thickness (id. ¶ 33).
During redrawing in accordance with the inventive method, a heating
means in the redrawing apparatus “heats [a] deformation region . . . to a
sufficiently high temperature so that a preform located in the deformation
region reaches the temperature T2 [above the softening point]” (id. ¶ 47) to
develop a deformation zone in the preform (id. ¶ 57). The Specification
discloses that “[o]f great importance for the invention is that the ceramizable
green glass is subjected to a temperature . . . at which ceramization and/or
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crystallization might start [for only a very short time]. In this manner, a
premature and undesired start of ceramization can be prevented in
particular during the deformation in the deformation region.” Id. ¶ 50
(emphasis added). “Generally, time spans in a range of not more than 5 s
have proven to be non-critical.” Id. ¶ 51. The ceramizable green glass
component produced by the inventive method is said to include only a small
crystalline content—less than 20 vol%—thereby reducing the likelihood of
cracking or breakage during a subsequent ceramization process. Id. ¶ 27.
The above Specification description, together with Specification
examples comparing the claimed method to prior art methods (see, e.g.,
¶¶ 96–120, 147), establish that a ceramizable green glass component having
a crystalline content of less than 20 vol% is not the inherent result of simply
redrawing a ceramizable green glass body. The Examiner has not identified
the conditions used in Bisson’s or Bocko’s methods, such as preform
temperature and time spent in the redrawing apparatus deformation region,
or otherwise explained why these prior art methods would have been
expected to produce a ceramizable green glass component having a
crystalline content of less than 20 vol%. Even if the Examiner is correct in
stating that the ordinary artisan would have understood the term “glass” as
indicating a substantially 0% crystalline material (see Ans. 18–19), the
Specification does not support an interpretation of “ceramizable green glass
component” (claim 1 (emphasis added)) as meaning a substantially 0%
crystalline material. See Spec. ¶¶ 17, 25.
For the above reasons, we do not sustain the prior art rejections of
claim 1. Because the rejections of the dependent claims likewise are based
on the Examiner’s unsupported findings that Bisson and Bocko disclose
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methods that include a step of “redrawing [a] preform into a ceramizable
green glass component . . . ha[ving] a crystalline content of less than 20
vol%” (claim 1), we do not sustain the rejections as to claims 2–24 and 28.
See generally Final 6–15.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b)
The Examiner rejected claim 7 as indefinite, and claims 8 and 9 as
indefinite due to their dependencies from claim 7. See Ans. 3; Final 2. Claim
7 depends from claim 5. See Appeal Br. 18 (Claims Appendix). Claim 5
recites, in relevant part, “the redrawing develops a deformation zone . . . ,
the deformation zone being a portion of the preform.” Id. Claim 7 recites, in
relevant part, “maintaining a dwell time of the preform in the deformation
zone of less than 10 minutes.” Id. The Examiner contends that claim 5
requires that the deformation zone is a portion of the preform, so it is unclear
how the preform can be in the deformation zone as recited in claim 7. Ans.
4; Final 2.
The Appellant argues that the claim language is clear on its face, but
directs us to Specification paragraphs 18 and 34, contending that these
paragraphs “clearly define[] the claimed ‘deformation zone,’” and that
“claim 7 uses the term in a manner consistent with this definition.” Appeal
Br. 6.
During prosecution,
[t]he USPTO is justified in using a lower threshold showing of
ambiguity to support . . . [an] indefiniteness [rejection], because
the applicant has an opportunity and a duty to amend the claims
during prosecution to more clearly and precisely define the
metes and bounds of the claimed invention and to more clearly
and precisely put the public on notice of the scope of the patent.
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Ex parte Miyazaki, 89 USPQ2d 1207, 1211–12 (BPAI 2008) (precedential).
Here, we have reviewed the Specification and determine that the meaning of
claim 7 is unclear for the reason stated by the Examiner. See Ans. 4; Final 2.
Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claims 7–9 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112(b). We add the following:
As argued by the Appellant, and discussed above, Specification
paragraph 34 defines the “deformation zone” as a “portion of the preform . .
. [having] a thickness between 0.95*D and 1.05*d, and . . . a height of not
more than 50*D.” The Specification also describes a deformation region,
which is an area in the redrawing apparatus that heats a preform to develop a
deformation zone in the preform. Spec. ¶¶ 47, 57. The Specification
discloses that “[w]ithin the deformation region the preform is heated to a
temperature . . . at which ceramization and/or crystallization might start.”
Id. ¶¶ 49–50. The Specification discloses that “[t]he time span[, or] . . .
period of time during which a given glass volume of the preform intended to
be deformed by redrawing is at a temperature above the temperature critical
for crystallization,” is generally “in a range of not more than 5 s.” Id. ¶ 51.
Claim 7, however, recites “a dwell time . . . of less than 10 minutes.” Appeal
Br. 18 (Claims Appendix). This language is used in Specification paragraph
52 to describe the time that the preform is in the deformation region. See
Spec. ¶ 52 (“The dwell time of the preform in the deformation region in this
case is less than 10 minutes . . . in order to reliably prevent undesired
ceramization.”). In the event of further prosecution, the Appellant may wish
to consider whether the term “region,” rather than “zone,” was intended in
the claim 7 phrase “maintaining a dwell time of the preform in the
deformation zone of less than 10 minutes.”
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DECISION SUMMARY
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
7–9 112(b) Indefiniteness 7–9
1–6, 10 102(a) Bisson 1–6, 10
1, 20, 28 102(a) Bocko 1, 20, 28
7–9, 16–19,
21–24
103 Bisson 7–9, 16–
19, 21–24
11–14 103 Bisson, Letz 11–14
15 103 Bisson, Helvajian 15
Overall
Outcome:

7–9 1–6, 10–
24, 28

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).
AFFIRMED IN PART