Ex Parte Fletcher et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 17, 201311581094 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 17, 2013) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte MITCHELL S. FLETCHER, RANDALL H. BLACK, and ANDREW J. MICHALICEK ____________________ Appeal 2011-003288 Application 11/581,094 Technology Center 3600 ____________________ Before: JAMES P. CALVE, SCOTT A. DANIELS, and JEREMY M. PLENZLER, Administrative Patent Judges. PLENZLER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-003288 Application 11/581,094 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-4, 6-15, and 21. Claim 5 has been cancelled and claims 16-20 have been withdrawn. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Claim 1 is the sole independent claim and is reproduced below: 1. A robotic system comprising: a plurality of robotic elements, each having at least one processing component, at least one memory component, and an I/O interface residing in each of the robotic elements; and a virtual backplane coupling the plurality of robotic elements, wherein each of the plurality of robotic elements includes system tables saved in the at least one memory component to control data transfers to and from the plurality of robotic elements and the virtual backplane. REJECTIONS 1. Claims 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Byrne (US 6,687,571 B1; iss. Feb. 3, 2004) and Benedyk (US 7,525,997 B2; iss. Apr. 28, 2009); 2. Claims 3, 4, and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Byrne, Benedyk, and Hara (US 2004/0210344 A1; pub. Oct. 21, 2004); 3. Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Byrne, Benedyk, and Duron (US 7,290,180 B2; iss. Oct. 30, 2007); Appeal 2011-003288 Application 11/581,094 3 4. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Byrne, Benedyk, and Heitmann (US 2005/0273200 A1; pub. Dec. 8, 2005); and 5. Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Byrne, Benedyk, and Sabe (US 2005/0090935 A1; pub. Apr. 28, 2005). OPINION Claim 1 is directed to a robotic system including a plurality of robotic elements and a virtual backplane coupling the robotic elements and recites that “each of the plurality of robotic elements includes system tables saved in the at least one memory component to control data transfers to and from the plurality of robotic elements and the virtual backplane.” The Examiner finds that column 10, lines 27-37 of Byrne inherently teaches the claimed system tables “in the way it teaches event action pairs.” Ans. 4. Appellants argue that Byrne does not necessarily include system tables saved in the memory of the robotic elements to control data transfers between the robotic elements and the virtual backplane. App. Br. 16; Reply Br. 6-7. We agree. While the Examiner finds that Byrne discloses a series of steps for cooperative search control of robots, the Examiner has not pointed to anything indicating why the claimed search tables are necessarily present in Byrne. Column 10, lines 27-37 of Byrne (relied on by the Examiner) discuss steps including information collection and sharing among robots to facilitate a search performed by the robots until a stop criterion is met. When explaining how the search is carried out by the robots, Byrne simply indicates that “the cooperative search controller . . . is distributed and independently executed on each robot’s processor” and “the cooperative Appeal 2011-003288 Application 11/581,094 4 controller is responsive to sensor readings from multiple robots and generates a control strategy determined from a sensor reading and a multi- robot cooperative approximation to a search.” Byrne, col. 8, l. 65 – col. 9, l. 4. Based on Byrne’s limited disclosure regarding the manner in which the search steps are carried out by the robots and the lack of further explanation from the Examiner, we are not convinced that Byrne inherently discloses the claimed system tables. See In re Robertson, 169 F.3d 743, 745 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (“Inherency . . . may not be established by probabilities or possibilities. The mere fact that a certain thing may result from a given set of circumstances is not sufficient.”). Thus, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1 and claims 2, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, and 21, which depend from claim 1. Claims 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 13 depend from claim 1 and the stated bases for the rejections of claims 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 13 do not cure the deficiency in the rejection of claim 1. Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejections of claims 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 13. DECISION We REVERSE the Examiner’s rejections. REVERSED Klh Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation