Ex Parte PenlandDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 21, 201814104944 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 21, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/104,944 12/12/2013 28765 7590 09/25/2018 Winston & Strawn LLP 1700 K Street NW, 2nd Floor Patent Department Washington, DC 20006 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Rustin B. Penland 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. CONFIRMATION NO. 170028-10810 8753 EXAMINER PEREZ FUENTES, LUIS M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2481 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/25/2018 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): patentdocket@winston.com sfanelli @wins ton. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte RUSTIN B. PENLAND Appeal 2016-006315 Application 14/104,944 Technology Center 2400 Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, DEBRA K. STEPHENS, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-20, which are all of the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). An Oral Hearing was held March 20, 2018. We REVERSE. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER According to Appellant, the claims are directed to a security system for identifying, recording, and transmitting video and audio of disturbances in a building (Spec. 1 ). Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A security system for identifying a disturbance in a room of a school building, the system comprising: Appeal2016-006315 Application 14/104,944 a camera and monitor in each room of the building that is to be occupied by individuals, with the camera operatively configured to normally be inactive even when individuals are present in the room, with the camera positioned and located to record and transmit viewing of a substantial portion or all of the room when the camera is activated, with the camera able to record both sights and sounds occurring in the room only when activated by an authorized person who is present in the room, and with the monitor engageable to receive transmissions from one or more cameras of other occupied rooms only when the cameras in the other rooms are activated; a storage compartment for a weapon located in one, a plurality or all of the occupied rooms, the storage compartment in electronic association with at least two manual activation mechanisms, a first one associated with activation of the system for a non-emergency situation and a second one associated with activation of the system for an emergency situation, wherein each manual activation mechanism is physically present in the same room as the storage compartment; and a computer that is in electronic association with the cameras, monitors, storage compartment and activation mechanisms to facilitate operation of the system, including: automatically activating the camera in the room where the first activation mechanism is located that mechanism is manually activated by an authorized individual who is present in the room to indicate a non- emergency disturbance and to record events occurring in the room during the disturbance without simultaneous transmission to other rooms; and automatically and simultaneously activating the camera, opening the storage compartment to provide access to the weapon therein and generating an alarm 2 Appeal2016-006315 Application 14/104,944 that indicates that an emergency situation exists in the room when the second activation mechanism is manually activated by the authorized individual who is present in the room to indicate an emergency situation in the room, with the camera, only when activated by the second activation mechanism, allowing video and audio of the events in the room to be simultaneously recorded and transmitted to the monitors of at least adjacent or nearby rooms or to all rooms to provide the occupants of those rooms information regarding the emergency situation and the room in which the emergency situation is occurring. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Monroe Markey et al. Stevenson US 6,970,183 Bl US 8,427,297 Bl US 2011/0175730 Al REJECTIONS Nov. 29, 2005 Apr. 23, 2013 July 21, 2011 Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §I03(a) as being unpatentable over Markey, Monroe, and Stevenson (Final Rej. 4--9). 35 U.S.C. § 103(a): Claims 1-20 Appellant contends the invention as recited in claims 1-20, is patentable over Markey, Monroe, and Stevenson (App. Br. 10-18). 1 The 1 Rather than repeat the arguments here, we refer to the Appeal Brief and Reply Brief for the positions of Appellant and the Final Office Action and Answer for the positions of the Examiner. Only those arguments actually made by Appellant have been considered in this decision. Arguments that Appellant did not make in the Briefs have not been considered and are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv) (2012). 3 Appeal2016-006315 Application 14/104,944 issue presented by Appellant is whether the Examiner has shown the combination of Markey, Monroe, and Stevenson teaches or suggests "a camera and a monitor in each room of the building," as recited in independent claim 1 and commensurately recited in independent claim 19. ANALYSIS Although the Examiner has set forth factual findings as to the teachings of Markey, Monroe, and Stevenson, we are persuaded by Appellant's arguments that the Examiner has failed to explain sufficiently why an ordinarily skilled artisan would have combined the teachings and suggestions of the cited references. Specifically, the Examiner finds Markey teaches the camera and monitor limitations "[ u ]nder the obvious assumption, that one skilled in the art could assume the possibility of replication/ duplication of the same system/ components in each of the location[ s] under closed surveillance" (Final Act. 5). The Examiner further finds that although "Markey fails to in details disclose a camera and a display in each of the rooms as claimed," Monroe teaches this limitation (id.). The Examiner next relies on Monroe for teaching the recited "computer that is in electronic association with the cameras, monitors, storage compartment and activation mechanisms" limitation and Stevenson to teach the recited "storage compartment for a weapon" limitation (id.). The Examiner then concludes It would be obvious to one skilled in the art, at the time the invention was made, to combine the inventions of Markey et al. with Monroe et al. because it will provide (a full service, multi- media surveillance system capable of a wide range of monitoring 4 Appeal2016-006315 Application 14/104,944 techniques utilizing digital network architecture [Summary]) and further with Stevenson et al. because such a combination will provide ( additional system protection, and at the same time will limit access to the gun [0005; 0007]) (Final Act. 6). The Examiner, however, does not explain how the teachings would have been combined to achieve the present invention. The Examiner relies upon both Markey and Monroe for teaching the argued claim limitation (Final Rej. 4--5; Ans. 9-10). Specifically, the Examiner relies on Markey for teaching a camera in each room of the building that records upon activation (Final Rej. 4 (citing Markey 3:65-67 ("still or video cameras 42 [] are mounted in the facility so that pictures and/or video of all or selected parts of the facility may be captured" (emphasis added))); id. (citing Markey Fig. 10, which corresponds to Markey 6:30-36 ("[t]he teacher either activates a nearby manual activation station 28 or instructs a student to activate the manual activation station .... cameras 42, 64 are [] instructed to begin recording"))). The Examiner recognized Markey did not disclose a camera and a display in each room and, thus, relies on Monroe for teaching a camera and a display (id. at 5). According to Examiner, Monroe discloses a similar multi-room surveillance system as the system disclosed in Markey, which employs a plurality of cameras that display synchronous images in a split screen or serial fashion upon activation (id. (citing Monroe 6:62----67, 16: 15-26, 35: 15-26, 46:5- 13)). The Examiner argues an ordinarily skilled artisan would know that each location under surveillance could employ the camera and associated display, upon activation, in each room by replication and/or duplication of 5 Appeal2016-006315 Application 14/104,944 system components based on the teachings of Markey and Monroe (id.; see also Ans. 10). The Examiner relies on Stevenson for teaching a storage compartment for a weapon, "the storage compartment in electronic association with at least two manual activation mechanisms," one associated with activation for a non-emergency situation and another an emergency situation (Final Act. 5 (citing Stevenson ,r,r 21, 40, 41, Summary)) and Monroe for teaching a multimedia surveillance and security system (Final Act. 5; Monroe, Title). Stevenson teaches a gun safe with its own alarm system (Stevenson ,r 40). Stevenson describes one embodiment in which "a manual key lock may be the primary mechanism for opening and closing the gun safe 10 in non- alarm conditions" (id. at 41 ). Stevenson further describes an embodiment in which the manual key lock is the primary mechanism for accessing the contents in non-alarm conditions and "the behavior of the gun safe 10 in alarm conditions is controlled by inputs previously received at the front panel" (id. at 41 ). One such embodiment is described as automatically unlocking the gun safe upon triggering an alarm system (id. at 21 ). The Examiner relies on Monroe's activation mechanism to teach the recited "computer" limitation (Final Act. 5; Ans. 5). Specifically, the Examiner relies on Monroe's teaching of "an activation mechanism for activating the senor appliance to generate a monitoring signal" ( emphases omitted) for teaching the recited "automatically activating the camera ... where the first activation mechanism is located [when] that mechanism is manually activated" (Final Act. 5 (citing Monroe 46:5)). The Examiner further relies on Monroe's teaching of activating appliances and sensors ... by any other desired criteria" to teach "automatically and simultaneously 6 Appeal2016-006315 Application 14/104,944 activating the camera, opening the storage compartment ... and generating an alarm that indicates that an emergency situation exists in the room when the second activation mechanism is manually activated by the authorized individual" (id. (citing Monroe 16:15)). The Examiner fails to explain how "such a combination will provide ( additional system protection, and at the same time will limit access to the gun" (Final Act. 5---6 (citing Stevenson ,r,r 5, 7)). The Examiner's articulated reason for combining is not sufficient and fails to explain why an ordinarily skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine the teachings and how these teachings would have been combined. Therefore, we agree with Appellant the Examiner has not clearly articulated how or why the claimed invention would have been obvious to an ordinarily skilled artisan (App. Br. 15-18). Accordingly, we are persuaded the Examiner fails to show the combination of Markey, Monroe, and Stevenson renders independent claim 1 and claims 2-20, not separately argued. Therefore, we reverse the rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combination of Markey, Monroe, and Stevenson. DECISION For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-20 under§ 103(a). Because we reverse at least one rejection for every appealed claim, we designate this Decision a reversal. REVERSED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation