Ex Parte Arcese et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 28, 201613625133 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 28, 2016) Copy Citation 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. 13/625,133 09/24/2012 Mauro Arcese DE920110061US1 4354 37945 7590 12/30/2016 DTTKFW YFF EXAMINER YEE AND ASSOCIATES, P.C. KIM, DONG U P.O. BOX 802333 DALLAS, TX 75380 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2196 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/30/2016 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): ptonotifs @yeeiplaw.com mgamez @ yeeiplaw. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MAURO ARCESE, LUCA GIMONDO, MARCO IMPERIA, and STEFANO MANOCCHIO Appeal 2015-008081 Application 13/625,133 Technology Center 2100 Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, IRVIN E. BRANCH, and NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1 and 7—15. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part. 1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2015-008081 Application 13/625,133 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Invention Appellants’ invention relates generally to application switching in an operating system and an application switching unit. Spec. 1:14—16. Exemplary independent claim 1 is reproduced below. 1. A method for application switching in an operating system, the method comprising: providing at least two active applications on the operating system; providing a first list of actions related to the first active application, via a first interface, to an application switching manager, and providing a second list of actions related to the second active application, via a second interface, to the application switching manager; selecting, using a graphical user interface, an active application out of the at least two active applications together with selecting an action selected from the first list of actions for the first application or a second action from the second list of actions for the second application, wherein selecting the active application comprises traversing graphically in an application switching direction through graphical representations of the at least two active applications based on a select application signal, and wherein selecting the action comprises traversing graphically through a graphical representation of the list of actions for an associated application of the at least two applications, wherein a respective action traversal direction is different to the application switching direction; and responsive to selecting the active application together with the action, (i) invoking the selected active application and (ii) invoking the selected action for the selected active application, wherein each action is associated with a command executable by the respective active application of the at least two applications, by executing the command immediately after selecting the active application in order to invoke the selected action for the selected active application. 2 Appeal 2015-008081 Application 13/625,133 References and Rejection Claims 1 and 7—15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Jarrett (US 2009/0193364, Al, Jul. 30, 2009), Korkonen (US 2012/0216146 Al, Aug. 23, 2012) and Matthews, III (US 2002/0085042 Al, Jul. 4, 2002). ANALYSIS I. Claims 1 and 7—10 A. Whether Korkonen Teaches Selecting an Application Together With Selecting an Action Corresponding to that Application Claim 1 recites “selecting, using a graphical user interface, an active application out of the at least two active applications together with selecting an action selected from the first list of actions for the first application or a second action from the second list of actions for the second application.” App. Br. 17 (Claims Appx.) The Examiner finds Korkonen teaches or suggests the above limitations by disclosing a set of active applications and virtual keys associated with each active application that effect functions of the active application. Final Act. 6 (citing Korkonen, Figs. 4—6,142). The Examiner further finds that the “virtual keys are displayed on the display area with or without user invoking/enabling the virtual keys.” Ans. 4—5 (citing Korkonen 142 (“However, the virtual keys may also be hidden or not present until a user indicates an application to which they would like to effect a change.”)). And finally, the Examiner finds Figure 4 of Korkonen illustrates active application icons with an “X” and “in response to selecting ‘X’ it selects the corresponding application and executes the command to 3 Appeal 2015-008081 Application 13/625,133 close the corresponding application without further user invocation.” Ans. 6. Appellants argue Korkonen does not teach or suggest selecting an active application together with an action. In particular, Appellants argue Korkonen’s virtual keys are displayed “in response to a user action such as invoking/enabling an application, where a user then has to subsequently and manually press/invoke one of these display virtual keys in a second selection in order to invoke the related action (Korkonen paragraph [0043], lines 6- 8).” App. Br. 8. Thus, Appellants assert, because the user has to invoke a virtual key subsequent to selecting an application, Korkonen does not teach selecting an active application “together with the action . . . .” App. Br. 8. Moreover, Appellants argue the Examiner’s finding that Korkonen’s virtual keys are displayed without the user invoking the keys “ignores the fact to invoke an action associated with the displayed virtual keys, a user has to subsequently and manually ‘select’ one of the displayed virtual keys that is not described as being performed ‘together with’ another ‘selection.’” Reply Br. 3. Appellants further argue that because Korkonen does not teach or suggest selecting an active application together with an action, the Examiner has failed to articulate a reason with a rational underpinning to support the conclusion of obviousness. App. Br. 9. We are unpersuaded by Appellants arguments. We agree with the Examiner that Korkonen’s disclosure of selecting an X on an icon of an active application teaches selecting an application together with selecting an action to close the application without further user invocation. Appellants do not rebut this finding with particularity and therefore their argument is unpersuasive. 4 Appeal 2015-008081 Application 13/625,133 B. Whether Matthews Teaches Selecting an Action by Traversing Through a List of Actions in a Direction Different to the Application Switching Direction Appellants argue Matthews does not teach or suggest “selecting the action comprises traversing graphically through a graphical representation of the list of actions for an associated application of the at least two applications, wherein a respective action traversal direction is different to the application switching direction.” In particular, Appellants argue Matthews “describes two applications that are already running, and their respective selectable options—and not the actual ‘selection’ of applications.” App. Br. 10. Appellants further argue that because Matthews describes selecting an action with a remote control, rather than with a mouse or pointing device, Matthews is unable to provide the claimed different directional features of the claim. We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ arguments. Appellants’ argument that Matthew does not teach the actual selection of applications attacks Matthews individually and fails to address the Examiner’s findings as a whole. The Examiner finds Korkonen teaches horizontal traversal of an application switching device and selection of applications. Final Act. 6; Ans. 10. The Examiner finds Matthews teaches vertical traversal of options in menus of active applications. Final Act. 8. Combining the two teachings, the Examiner finds Matthews and Korkonen together teach selecting an application by traversing horizontally through the applications, and selecting an action by traversing vertically through the actions. Moreover, Appellants’ argument that Matthews does not disclose traversing a list of actions in a direction different than an application switching direction because Matthews’ actions are selected with remote control buttons rather 5 Appeal 2015-008081 Application 13/625,133 than with a mouse, ignores the fact that Matthews’ remote control has directional arrow buttons used to traverse through lists of menu options. See Matthews Fig. 4, || 51, 78. This is similar to Appellants’ Specification describing using the arrow buttons on a keyboard to traverse through a vertical list of actions for a corresponding application. See Spec. 8:15—29; 15:31-16:8. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. We also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 7—10, which were argued together with claim 1. See App. Br. 7—12. II. Claim 11 Appellants argue “In paragraph [0042], Korkonen describes displaying virtual keys, and does not describe any action/step performed by an actual ‘operating system’, such as an ‘operating system’ querying an active application to ascertain a list of actions, as claimed.” App. Br. 14. Appellants further argue that even if applications depend upon an operating system, this “‘dependency’ does not describe a specific ‘querying’ step/action performed.” Reply Br. 6. Appellants further argue that the Examiner’s finding that an “OS must be leveraged to load the context menu from memory by querying that active application” is “pure speculation that is not supported by objective evidence since Korkonen does not explicitly state/teach such OS ‘query’ functionality.” Reply Br. 6. We are persuaded of Examiner error. We agree with Appellants that Korkonen does not explicitly teach an operating system querying an application to ascertain the list of actions corresponding to that application. Although we agree with the Examiner that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that an operating system is foundational software on 6 Appeal 2015-008081 Application 13/625,133 which applications depend, the Examiner has not established that this necessitates an operating system querying the application to ascertain the list of actions. As Appellants point out, there could be other ways in which the actions could be displayed which do not involve the operating system querying the application. Further, the Examiner has not established with citations to any evidence that querying applications for their actions by an operating system was within the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art. Accordingly, constrained by the record before us, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 11. III. Claims 12—15 Appellants argue Jarrett “does not teach the claimed ‘together with’ selecting action ... it cannot possibly teach how such ‘together with’ selecting action is actually performed.” App. Br. 15; see also Reply Br. 7 (“This application ‘switching’ is not described as being performed using dual-pronged ‘selecting’ steps/actions, where a ‘selecting’ of an ‘active application’ is performed together with the ‘selecting’ of an ‘action . . . .’”) We are unpersuaded by Appellants argument. Appellants make largely the same argument as they did for claim 1, namely that the prior art does not teach selecting an application together with selecting an action corresponding to that application. As the Examiner points out, Korkonen teaches selecting an application together with selecting an action. Ans. 14. Jarrett is relied upon to teach the selecting can be carried out using a plurality of concurrently performed user gestures. Final Act. 10—11. Appellants do not rebut this finding with particularity. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 12—15. 7 Appeal 2015-008081 Application 13/625,133 DECISION The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 7—10, and 12—15 are affirmed. The Examiner’s rejection of claim 11 is reversed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal maybe extended. See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED-IN-PART 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation