eBay Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Nov 18, 2020

13826100 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Nov. 18, 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.
13/826,100 03/14/2013 Anurag Bhardwaj IP-P1646US1 5169
150039 7590 11/18/2020
SBMC/eBay
116 West Pacific
Suite 200
Spokane, WA 99201
EXAMINER
BEKERMAN, MICHAEL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3621
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/18/2020 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):
docket@sbmc-law.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte ANURAG BHARDWAJ, ROBINSON PIRAMUTHU,
and NEELAKANTAN SUNDARESAN
____________

Appeal 2020-0044311
Application 13/826,100
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, MATTHEW S. MEYERS, and
ROBERT J. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

MEYERS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant2 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1–20, which constitute all the claims pending in this
application. We have jurisdiction 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. Our decision references Appellant’s Appeal Brief
(“Appeal Br.,” filed February 3, 2020) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed
May 27, 2020), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed March 27,
2020) and Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed August 22, 2019).
2 Appellant identifies “eBay Inc.” as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3.
Appeal 2020-004431
Application 13/826,100
2
CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellant’s claimed invention relates generally to a “system and
method to utilize an intra-body area network.” Spec. ¶ 1.
Claims 1, 11, and 20 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below with bracketed notations added, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. A method comprising:
[a] detecting, using at least one processor, a first
electronic sensor and a second electronic sensor, the first sensor
collects information from the body of a user and is embedded in
a first item wearable by the user, the second electronic sensor
collects information from an environment of the user and is
embedded in a second item wearable by the user;
[b] receiving, at a mobile device of the user, from the
first electronic sensor data indicating a triggering condition;
[c] commencing receiving, at the mobile device of the
user, data being collected by the second electronic sensor only
responsive to the receiving of the data collected by the first
electronic sensor indicating the triggering condition;
[d] using at least one processor that determines
correlation of the received data collected by the first electronic
sensor and the received data collected by the second electronic
sensor, determining a type of activity performed by the user
based on the correlation of the received data collected by the
first electronic sensor and the received data collected by the
second electronic sensor; and
[e] based on the determined type of activity, generating a
communication for the user.

Appeal 2020-004431
Application 13/826,100
3
REJECTION
1. Claims 1, 2, 10–12, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as unpatentable over Vardy (WO 2011/094819 A1, pub. Nov. 8,
2011)3 and Meyer (US 2014/0159856 A1, pub. June. 12, 2014).
2. Claims 3–6 and 13–16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Vardy, Meyer, and Goldberg (US 2011/0245633
A1, pub. Oct. 6, 2011).
3. Claims 7 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Vardy, Meyer, and Stirling (US 2012/0143093
A1, pub. June 7, 2012).
4. Claims 8 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Vardy, Meyer, Stirling, and Wannier (US
2010/0023426 A1, pub. Jan. 28, 2010).
5. Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Vardy, Meyer, and Horst (US 2010/0211355 A1, pub. Aug. 19,
2010).
ANALYSIS
Independent claims 1, 11, and 20, and dependent claims 2, 3, 6–10, 12, 13,
and 16–19
Appellant argues claims 1–3, 6–10–13, and 16–20 as a group (see
Appeal Br. 9–12). We select independent claim 1 as representative. The
remaining claims stand or fall with independent claim 1. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

3 The Examiner refers to WO Patent Publication No. 2011/094819 as Willis.
Final Act. 2–8; Ans. 3. Appellant refers to the same WO Patent Publication
as Vardy (see Appeal Br. 9–14). To avoid confusion, our decision refers to
this reference as Vardy “because Vardy is the first listed inventor and Willis
is the second listed inventor.” Reply Br. 5; cf. Vardy, codes (71), (72).
Appeal 2020-004431
Application 13/826,100
4
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner
erred in rejecting independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because the
combination of Vardy and Meyer fails to disclose or suggest limitations [a]
and [d] of independent claim 1. Appeal Br. 9–12; Reply Br. 6–9.
Independent claims 11 and 20 include similar limitations, and are argued
based on similar arguments. See Appeal Br. 12; see also Reply Br. 9.
Instead, we agree with the Examiner that the combination of Vardy and
Meyer discloses the argued limitations. See Final Act. 2–3 (citing Vardy,
5:5–10, 12:28–33, 14:1–12, 24:12–18, 18:17–19:15, 25:3–23); Ans. 3–6.
Vardy is directed to “a monitoring system in an article of clothing that
measures and reports on various variables such as the temperature, location,
heart rate, radiation exposure, respiration and blast exposure of a wearer
and/or its environment.” Vardy, 1:7–10. Vardy describes that its
monitoring system includes “a first set of sensors configured to measure one
or more physiological characteristics of the subject” and “a second set of
sensors configured to measure one or more environmental conditions to
which the subject is exposed.” Id. at 2:19–22. More particularly, Vardy
discloses “a t-shirt 10, with pressure sensors 11, a heart rate sensor 12, a
temperature sensor 13, a strain gauge 14, and an electronic module 15. The
electronic module 15 contains a transmitter and a locating element.” Id. at
12:28–30; see also id. at 14:4–6 (“The system preferably includes one or
more additional components of hardware coupled to article of clothing such
as a PC, or portable device such as a PDA, smartphone, iPad,
laptop/notebook, netbook or the like.”). Vardy also discloses that its
“transmitter is configured to communicate with one or more adjacent articles
of clothing” (id. at 24:12–13) and is able to form a personal area network.
Id. at 24:14–18; see also id. at 3:8–10 (“The article of clothing may
Appeal 2020-004431
Application 13/826,100
5
comprise more than one individual garment such as, for example, a
combination of a shirt and pants.”).
Meyer is directed to a system “configured to activate different sensors
at different times based on a sensing strategy.” Meyer ¶ 1. More
particularly, Meyer describes that
an event sensed by a single first level sensor 106 may cause
sensor control module 108 to then activate a plurality of second
level sensors 110 ( e.g., of the same or a different type) to, for
example, provide sensor coverage over a wider area, provide
finer sensor resolution[, etc.]
Id. ¶ 15.
Appellant first argues that Vardy fails to disclose or suggest “a first
electronic sensor and a second electronic sensor,” as recited by limitation [a]
of independent claim 1 because Vardy discloses “[a] single article of
clothing [with] a plurality of sensors, which is not the same as embedding
different sensors into different wearable items.” Appeal Br. 10. Appellant
acknowledges that “Vardy contemplates an embodiment having a transmitter
configured to communicate with one or more adjacent articles of clothing”
(id. (citing Vardy, 24:12–13)), but asserts that “Vardy does not . . . specify
that an adjacent article of clothing, with which the transmitter is configured
to communicate, is capable of collecting information from the body of a user
or from an environment of the user.” Appeal Br. 10. We disagree.
Here, as the Examiner points out, in Vardy “each article of clothing
can have multiple sensors that can measure internal and external factors, and
that communication can occur with multiple articles of clothing adjacent to
each other.” Ans. 4; see also Vardy, 2:19–22. In this regard, Vardy
discloses that its “transmitter is configured to communicate with one or more
adjacent articles of clothing.” Vardy, 24:12–13; see also id. at 3:17–20
Appeal 2020-004431
Application 13/826,100
6
(“The transmitter is preferably an electronic transmission module which is
preferably programmed for electronic transmission of measured and/or
recorded data from the at least one sensor and at least one tracking
element.”). Therefore, in the absence of specific, technical argument as to
why Vardy’s disclosure is insufficient, we find Appellant’s argument to be
unpersuasive.
Appellant next argues that the combination of Vardy and Meyer fails
to disclose or suggest “determining a type of activity performed by the user
based on the correlation of the received data collected by the first electronic
sensor and the received data collected by the second electronic sensor,” as
recited-in-part by limitation [d] of independent claim 1 (see Appeal Br. 10–
12; see also Reply Br. 6–7). More particularly, Appellant argues that
“determining potential health and safety risks is not the same as determining
a type of activity performed by the user.” Appeal Br. 10 see also Reply Br.
6–7. However, we agree with the Examiner that Vardy discloses the argued
feature. See Ans. 4–5 (citing Vardy, 25:15–19).
In making this determination, we initially note that Appellant’s
Specification does not provide a lexicographic definition for the phrase
“type of activity.” The Specification describes broadly that an activity can
be detected using “electronic sensing devices” (see, e.g., Spec. ¶¶ 12, 13),
and identifies that data collected by these sensors may be used “either by
itself or in combination with other data, to generate and send an electronic
communication to the user” such as “a message, an image, an alert or some
other communication.” Id. ¶ 12. In the absence of an explicit definition, we
find the Examiner’s interpretation of the phrase “type of activity” as being
one of “‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’” (Ans. 4) to be reasonable in light of the
Specification. And, given that Vardy discloses “determin[ing] potential
Appeal 2020-004431
Application 13/826,100
7
health and safety risks to” a user and then presenting the “identified health
and safety risks to the” user (Vardy, 25:15–19), we agree with the Examiner
that Vardy discloses “determining a type of activity performed by the user,”
as called for by limitation [d] of independent claim 1, under a broad but
reasonable interpretation.
In view of the foregoing, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We also will sustain the
Examiner’s rejections of claims 2, 7–10–12, and 17–20, which fall with
independent claim 1.
Dependent Claims 4 and 14
Dependent claim 4 recites “receiving first data, the first data collected
by a first electronic sensor; aggregating the first data with a second data, the
second data collected from a second electronic sensor, to generate
aggregated data; and updating a profile of the user based on the aggregated
data.” Claim 14 recites a similar limitation.
Appellant argues that Vardy does not “update[e] a profile of the user
based on the aggregated data” because Vardy simply “produces a current
profile of the subject based on the environmental and physiological data
collected by the first and second set of sensors.” Appeal Br. 13 (citing
Vardy, 2:26–27. More particularly, Appellant argues that “producing a
profile is not the same as updating a profile, because ‘producing’ can be only
with respect to something that is not in existence until it is produced and
‘updating’ has to be with respect to something already in existence.” Id.
However, we agree with the Examiner that Vardy discloses the argued
feature. Final Act. 4 (citing Vardy, 2:19–22, 2:26–27, 18:17–26); Ans. 5–6
(citing Vardy, 25:13–17). In making this determination, we note that Vardy
Appeal 2020-004431
Application 13/826,100
8
discloses “[t]he transmitted data [are] preferably stored in at least one
database entry relating to a wearer of the article and/or to a particular article.
The data may be compared with previously captured data to identify and/or
illustrate changes and/or trends in the data.” Vardy, 10:6–9; see also id. at
25:13–17 (“[C]ompare the current profile of the subject with a base line
profile of the subject complied from historical information.”). Vardy
describes that its “system simply appends any new data from the data
capture session to the existing file for the given subject/device before saving
the updated file to the systems database.” Id. at 17:31–18:2. Thus, Vardy
does not simply “produce” a profile, but rather, “updates” a profile with
aggregated first sensor data and second sensor data in order to “compare [a]
current profile of the subject with a base line profile of the subject.” Id. at
25:15–16.
In view of the foregoing, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
claims 4 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
Dependent claims 5 and 15
Dependent claim 5 recites “utilizing the collected and aggregated data
to generate a communication for the user.” Claim 15 recites a similar
limitation.
Appellant argues that
Vardy does not communicate information to the weather [sic,
wearer] of the sensors and therefore does not disclose “utilizing
the collected and aggregated data to generate a communication
for the user,” where “the first sensor collects information from
the body of a user and is embedded in a first item wearable by
the user, the second electronic sensor collects information from
an environment of the user and is embedded in a second item
wearable by the user.”
Appeal 2020-004431
Application 13/826,100
9
Appeal Br. 13–14. However, we agree with the Examiner that Vardy
discloses the argued limitation. Final Act. 4 (citing Vardy, 18:28–19:5);
Ans. 6 (citing Vardy, 25:18–19). Here, as the Examiner points out, Vardy
discloses “present[ing] identified health and safety risks to the subject and/or
third parties for assessment.” Ans. 6 (citing Vardy, 25:18–19). Thus,
Appellant’s argument is not persuasive.
In view of the foregoing, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
claims 5 and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 2, 10–12,
19, 20
103(a) Vardy, Meyer 1, 2, 10–12,
19, 20

3–6, 13–16 103(a) Vardy, Meyer,
Goldberg
3–6, 13–16
7, 17 103(a) Vardy, Meyer,
Stirling
7, 17
8, 18 103(a) Vardy, Meyer,
Stirling, Wannier
8, 18
9 103(a) Vardy, Meyer,
Horst
9
1–20 1–20

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