Ex Parte Florea et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 24, 2018

14203735 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 24, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
14/203,735 03/11/2014 Razvan Virgil Florea
54549 7590 09/26/2018
CARLSON, GASKEY & OLDS/PRATT & WHITNEY
400 West Maple Road
Suite 350
Birmingham, MI 48009
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO.
PA23876AA;
67097-2203US1
CONFIRMATION NO.
2573
EXAMINER
GICZY, ALEXANDER V
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3642
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/26/2018 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):
ptodocket@cgolaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte RAZVAN VIRGIL FLOREA, WILLIAM T. COUSINS,
THOMAS G. TILLMAN, DAVID J. AREND, and JOHN D. WOLTER1
Appeal2017-010703
Application 14/203, 73 5
Technology Center 3600
Before KEVIN F. TURNER, DANIELS. SONG, and
STEFAN STAICOVICI, Administrative Patent Judges.
SONG, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner's
Final Office Action (hereinafter "Final Act.") rejecting claims 1, 3, 10, 11,
14, 19, and 21 in the present application. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. §§ 6(b) and 134(a).
We AFFIRM.
1 The Appellant is the Applicant, United Technologies Corporation, which is
identified as the real party in interest (Appeal Brief (hereinafter "App. Br.")
1 ).
Appeal2017-010703
Application 14/203,735
The claimed invention is directed to a hybrid wing aircraft having a
system to deliver additional air to correct fan stability issues caused by the
boundary layer (Abstract). Independent claim 1, illustrative of the invention,
reads as follows (App. Br. 8, Claims App'x, emphasis added):
1. A hybrid wing aircraft comprising:
an engine embedded into a body of said hybrid wing
aircraft, such that said embedded engine has a fan received
within a nacelle, and wherein said body providing a boundary
layer over a circumferential portion of a circumference of said
fall"
'
said circumferential portion being an arc with a central
angle less than or equal to 180 degrees; and
a system to deliver an additional amount of air only to said
circumferential portion at a given flight condition configured to
reduce the effect of said boundary layer on fan stability;
wherein said system includes a tap located upstream of the
nacelle, said tap configured to deliver said additional amount of
air to said boundary layer at a location upstream of said nacelle.
Independent claim 14 is similar to claim 1, but is directed to a method
of operating a hybrid wing aircraft (App. Br. 9, Claims App'x).
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejects claims 1, 3, 14 and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a)
as obvious over Miller et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0022092 Al, pub. Feb. 2,
2006 (hereinafter "Miller")) in view of Winter et al. (U.S. Pub. No.
2008/0112799 Al, pub. May 15, 2008 (hereinafter "Winter")) (Final Act. 5).
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Application 14/203,735
The Examiner rejects claims 10, 11, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a)
as obvious over Miller in view of Winter and Mattingly et al., Aircraft
Engine Design (2002) (hereinafter "Mattingly") (Final Act. 9).
ANALYSIS
Only those arguments actually made by the Appellant have been
considered in this decision. Arguments that the Appellant could have made
but chose not to make have not been considered and are deemed to be
waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv); In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1365-
66 (Fed. Cir. 2011); Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075-76 (BPAI 2010
(precedential) ).
The Examiner rejects independent claims 1 and 14 finding that Miller
discloses substantially the claimed invention, but that Miller does not
explicitly disclose the limitation "said embedded engine has a fan received
within a nacelle." (Final Act. 5---6). The Examiner finds that "Winter,
however, teaches an aircraft engine having a fan section 14 discharging
airflow Fl (paragraphs 0018, 0020 and Figure 1)." (Final Act. 6). Based on
these findings, the Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to a
person of ordinary skill in the art to have "add[ ed] to the engine taught by
Miller[,] the fan taught by Winter" in order to increase efficiency, which
results in an embedded engine having a fan, and a boundary layer over a
circumferential portion thereof (Final Act. 7).
According to the Appellant, "[ t ]he Examiner argues that it would have
been obvious to modify Miller's micro-jet array system for turbine engines
with Winter's boundary layer generating turbofan engine" (App. Br. 3,
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Application 14/203,735
emphasis added). The Appellant argues that "incorporating the flow
orientation of Winter into the system of Miller would increase the amount of
low momentum flow ingested by the engine, and would in fact exacerbate
the drag reduction issue that Miller sets out to mitigate." (App. Br. 5,
emphasis added). Accordingly, the Appellant argues that Miller and Winter
"are not compatible" because:
The Miller reference mitigates a boundary layer, whereas the
Winter reference increases a boundary layer. The purposes of
the two systems are polar opposite. Thus, the proposed
modification would render the prior art invention being modified
(Miller) unsatisfactory for its intended purpose, and would
otherwise change the principle of operation of Miller.
(App. Br. 3; see also App. Br. 5).
The Appellant mischaracterizes the Examiner's rejection, and thus, its
arguments are unpersuasive because they are not directed to the actual
rejection made. As the Examiner correctly points out, the rejection is not
premised on bodily incorporating the bleed air outlet of Winter into the
micro-jet array system of Miller, but instead, is based on adding the fan
taught by Winter into the engine of Miller (Ans. 4--5). The fact that Miller's
reference mitigates a boundary layer (in contrast to Winter) is not pertinent
to whether it would have been obvious to provide the engine of Miller with a
fan, such as that of Winter, for efficiency purposes.
As the Examiner explains, "[t]he angle of the micro-jet airflow from
the combination resulting from Miller in view of Winter is unchanged from
that of primary reference Miller and thus the boundary layer continues to be
mitigated in the manner taught by Miller." (Ans. 8). Accordingly, neither
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Application 14/203,735
the intended purpose, nor the principle of operation of Miller is impacted by
the Examiner's proposed combination of Miller and Winter.
The Appellant argues that "[t]he Examiner's position fails to consider
the references as a whole" (App. Br. 6; see also Reply Br. 2), and that
references teach away from the combination because "one skilled in the art
attempting to mitigate a boundary layer, 'would be discouraged from
following' any of the alleged teachings from the boundary layer generating
system of Winter (because [W]inter seeks to create a boundary layer)."
(Reply Br. 1 ). However, the Appellant does not point to any passage in
Miller that "criticize[ s ], discredit[ s] or otherwise discourage[ s ]" adding the
fan taught by Winter into the engine of Miller's aircraft, and, hence,
"increase the efficiency of the aircraft." (See Final Act. 7). Moreover, the
Appellant has not persuasively shown that adding the fan taught by Winter
into the engine of Miller's aircraft, according to the Examiner's rejection,
would result in promoting the formation of a boundary layer. Rather, as the
Examiner correctly states, Winter's disclosure of bleeding air passages 50,
54 are not bodily incorporated (see Ans. 4--5). Furthermore, to any extent
that the Appellant is arguing that the references are non-analogous, we agree
with the Examiner that Miller and Winter are analogous because they are
directed to "injecting additional air into the boundary layer of an aircraft
engine upstream of said engine." (Ans. 4).
We also disagree with the Appellant's assertion that the entirety of
Winter's teachings, including its tap's outlet, must be applied to Miller. It is
well established that a skilled artisan is not compelled to blindly follow the
teaching of one prior art reference over the other without the exercise of
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Application 14/203,735
independent judgment. Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Aeroquip Corp., 733 F.2d 881,
889 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Obviousness does not require that all of the features of
the secondary reference be bodily incorporated into the primary reference In
re Keller, 642 F.2d 413,425 (CCPA 1981).
Thus, for the reasons discussed above, we agree with the Examiner
and find the Appellant's arguments unpersuasive.
Dependent Claim 3
Claim 3 depends from claim 1, and further recites "wherein said tap
includes an inlet from a compressor which is downstream of said fan."
(App. Br. 8, Claims App'x). The Examiner concedes that "Miller does not
teach said tap includes an inlet from a compressor." (Final Act. 7).
However, the Examiner finds that "Miller further teaches that the micro-jet
flow may be bled from the primary flow associated [with] an engine
(paragraph 0049)," and further finds that Winter discloses a bleed passage
having an inlet from the compressor (Final Act. 7-8, citing Winter ,r 24,
Figs. 2 and 3). Based on these findings, the Examiner concludes that it
would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to provide
Miller's micro-jets with an inlet from a compressor in order "to provide the
micro-jet flow from a bleed source from the primary flow associated [with]
an engine as taught by Miller." (Final Act. 8).
The Appellant argues that Examiner's rejection of claim 3 is improper
and is based on hindsight because:
relative to claim 1, the Examiner's position is that he does not
need to include the outlet of Winter's tap when modifying Miller.
Now, relative to claim 3, the Examiner's position is that he can
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Application 14/203,735
apply Winter's tap inlet to Miller, while still ignoring the
teachings surrounding Winter's tap outlet.
(Reply Br. 2-3).
The Appellant's argument is unpersuasive. As the Examiner finds
(Ans. 7), Miller discloses that the disclosed micro-jet flows "may be
continuous or pulsed and may be bled from the primary flow associated with
an engine." (Miller ,r 49). However, Miller does not identify the particular
location of the engine from which such micro-jet flows can be bled. Winter,
in providing its tap, discloses a flow that is bled from a compressor (Winter
,r 24; Fig. 3). Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner that such
positioning of Miller's inlet so that the micro-jet flows are bled from the
compressor would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. We
find neither impropriety nor hindsight in the Examiner's reliance on Winter
for disclosing an appropriate location of an inlet for providing the micro-jet
flows in Miller's arrangement, and not on Winter's outlets 50, 54. As the
Examiner explains, "the teachings of the secondary reference Winter are
used to specify from which part of the engine the air is provided to the
micro-jets of primary reference Miller." (Ans. 7; see also Final Act. 8).
We also again disagree with the Appellant's assertion that the entirety of
Winter's teaching must be applied to Miller.
In view of the above, we agree with the Examiner that the
modifications set forth in the rejection:
do not alter the operation Miller -- adding only a fan (i.e., a
turbofan engine) and taking air from the engine compressor as
the source of engine flow, such modification would [have been]
obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art for the reasons
laid out above and in the rejections to the claims.
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Application 14/203,735
(Ans. 9).
The Appellant does not submit any arguments specifically directed to
the remaining dependent claims, but instead, relies on their respective
dependencies for patentability (App. Br. 6). Accordingly, these remaining
claims fall with their corresponding independent claims 1 or 14 from which
they depend.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 3, 10, 11, 14, 19, and 21 is
AFFIRMED.
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)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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