DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Objections
Claim 4 is objected to because of the following informalities: “ws” in line 3 should be replaced with “was”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the corrective action to be taken" in line 8. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the corrective action to be taken" in line 9. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the corrective action to be taken" in 10. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
With respect to claims 1, 9, and 15, it is unclear how the limitation of “responsive to determining the corrective action to be taken” in line 8 can occur when there has been no determination of what corrective action should be taken or even that there needs to be a corrective action. The previous step merely determines that a corrective action is indicated. Furthermore, it is unclear what occurs if the ΔP exceeds the threshold and no corrective action is indicated.
With respect to claims 8 and 19, it is unclear what the “plurality of slopes of ΔP” refer to. A slope is a change. However, a change must be relative to something. Therefore, the claim is currently requiring determining a plurality of changes of ΔP relative to some unknown variable (i.e., depth, time, etc.) in the historic data. It is unclear what the boundaries of the claim are.
Claims 2-8, 10-14, and 16-20 are rejected for depending from a rejected claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-5, 7, 9-12, and 14-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haci (US 2004/0222023) in view of Badkoubeh (US 2016/0138382).
With respect to claims 1, 9, and 15: Haci discloses a method for controlling slide drilling of a well, the method comprising:
determining a threshold for an increase in differential pressure (ΔP) (¶ [0039]);
during slide drilling of a wellbore, monitoring, by a control system (55, 61), ΔP (63, 77; ¶ [0029, 0034-35]);
upon detecting an increase in ΔP that exceeds the threshold (¶ [0039]), determining, by the control system, whether a corrective action is indicated (¶ [0039-41]);
responsive to determining the corrective action to be taken (¶ [0039-41]), determining the corrective action to be taken and implementing the corrective action (¶ [0039-41]; once the tool face is at the correct place which occurs after the increase in differential pressure and torque the operation returns to normal which is the corrective action); and
responsive to determining that an increase in ΔP does not exceed the threshold therefor, determining that a corrective action is not indicated and continuing the slide drilling of the wellbore (¶ [0039-41]).
Haci further discloses one or more instructions sored on memory that, when executed by one or more processors of a drill rig system, cause the drill rig system to perform the above operations (¶ [0039-41]).
Haci does not disclose obtaining, by a control system, historical data of differential pressure (ΔP) measurements for a well or for other wells during slide drilling and using that historic data to determine a threshold for an increase in ΔP.
Badkoubeh teaches it is known in the art to obtain, by a control system (¶ [0042]), historic data of variable measurements (¶ [0042]) for a well or for other wells (¶ [0042]) and using that historic data to determine a threshold for an increase in the variable (¶ [0042]). It would be obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the historic data source for the threshold determination of Badkoubeh with the invention of Haci with a reasonable expectation of success since doing so would allow the determination of the threshold for the variable increases the confidence of the threshold since the selection is made based on the drilling conditions (Badkoubeh ¶ [0042]).
With respect to claims 2, 10, and 16: Haci from the combination of Haci and Badkoubeh further teaches monitoring torque (53) and toolface error (51) during drilling (¶ [0035]).
With respect to claims 3 and 11: Haci from the combination of Haci and Badkoubeh further teaches determining whether the corrective action is indicated further comprises: upon detecting the increase in ΔP that exceeds the threshold, determining, by the control system, whether a corresponding increase in torque has occurred or a corresponding toolface error has occurred (¶ [0040]; the torque is deliberately set to increase which further increases the differential pressure); and responsive to the detection of the increase in ΔP and the corresponding increase in torque or toolface error, determining, by the control system, whether the corrective action is indicated (¶ [0039-41]; once the tool face is at the correct place which occurs after the increase in differential pressure and torque the operation returns to normal which is the corrective action).
With respect to claim 4: Haci from the combination of Haci and Badkoubeh further teaches determining whether the corresponding increase in torque has occurred comprises detecting an increase in torque within a predetermined time period from when the increase in ΔP was detected or detecting an increase in torque that exceeds a threshold (¶ [0040-41]).
With respect to claims 5, 12, and 18: Haci from the combination of Haci and Badkoubeh further teaches the corrective action comprises adjusting at least one of the following: toolface, weight on bit, rate of penetration, torque, differential pressure, mud flow rate, and rate of oscillation (¶ [0041]).
With respect to claims 7, 14 and 17: Badkoubeh from the combination of Haci and Badkoubeh further teaches determining the threshold for the increase in ΔP comprises evaluating the historical data of ΔP over a predefined past drilling time interval (¶ [0042]; the predefined past time interval is whatever the time interval is available for the data).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 8, 13, and 19-20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
With respect to claims 6, 13, and 20, the art of record does not teach or make obvious the variance in the toolface relative to the other variables in combination with the other claim limitations.
With respect to claims 8 and 19, the art of record does not teach or make obvious the details related to determining the threshold from the historic data in combination with the other claim limitations.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KRISTYN A HALL whose telephone number is (571)272-8384. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-5:00.
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/KRISTYN A HALL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3672