Ex Parte Schön

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 27, 2017

13305457 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 27, 2017)

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.
13/305,457 11/28/2011 Lennart Schon P34391 US1 4907
96750 7590
Patents on Demand, P.A.
4581 Weston Road, Suite 345
Weston, EL 33331
03/29/2017 EXAMINER
HUANG, WEN WU
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2648
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/29/2017 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):
docketingl @patentsondemand.com
docketing3 @patentsondemand.com
docketing. eric sson @ thomsonreu ters .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte LENNART SCHON
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
Technology Center 2600
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JOHN D. HAMANN, and ALEX S. YAP,
Administrative Patent Judges.
DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1—7, 18—25, and 28, which constitute all the claims
pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to an app driven base station man-machine
interface. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A user equipment, UE, comprising:
a transceiver configured to communicate with a base
station via a wireless communication link;
a memory configured to store information corresponding
to units of the base station;
a processor configured to interpret a code received from a
unit of the base station by matching the received code with the
stored information, wherein the code corresponds to an
operational status of the units of the base station, and to
recommend an appropriate action to cure one or more errors
determined by the interpreting, wherein the operational status is
an indication of a defect in a part of the unit; and
a display configured to display the one or more errors
using a natural language.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Sasaki et al. US 6,954,637 B2 Oct. 11, 2005
(“Sasaki”)
1 Appellant indicates that the real party in interest is
TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET L M ERICSSON (PUBL). (App Br. 2)
2
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
Takada US 2008/0045206 Al Feb. 21,2008
Rocamora et al. US 7,495,574 B2 Feb. 24, 2009
(“Rocamora”)
Halloran et al. US 2011/0077802 Al Mar. 31,2011
(“Halloran”)
Dain et al. US 2012/0271645 Al Oct. 25, 2012
(“Dain”)
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1, 2, 4, and 7 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Sasaki in view of Takada.
Claims 18—25 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Sasaki in view of Takada and Dain.
Claims 3, 5, and 6 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Sasaki and Takada as applied to claim 1, and further in
view of Rocamora.
Claim 28 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Sasaki, Takada, and Dain as applied to claim 18 above,
and further in view of Halloran.
ANALYSIS
Claim 1
With respect to independent claim 1, Appellant contends that:
Takada’s “detail of suspected fault” and remarks do not
recommend corrective actions as acknowledges also by Takada’s
paragraph [0061] (cited in the FOA):
When repair and inspection are performed by dispatched
maintenance workers under the instruction from upper-
level equipment 100, since the maintenance workers can
3
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
know the fault cause of call processing control unit 30 in
advance, the repair can be started instantly, and thus,
prompt repair becomes possible.
Thus, Takada merely facilitates the maintenance workers
performing the repairs faster by providing the remarks, but the
repair workers remain the ones deciding about the corrective
actions. Therefore, Takada does not render obvious the claimed
processor, which is configured “to recommend an appropriate
action to cure one or more errors determined by the interpreting.”
None of the remarks or the details in Takada's table corresponds
to a corrective action.
Applicants found no evidence that the other references
correct or compensate for Takada's failure to render obvious the
features that the FAO alleges to be rendered obvious.
(App. Br. 6—7).
We disagree with Appellant and agree with the Examiner that
paragraph 61 of the Takada reference teaches and fairly suggests that the
table of the suspected fault with the corresponding fault code teaches and
fairly suggests the claimed “to recommend an appropriate action to cure one
or more errors determined by the interpreting a received code.”
Additionally, the Examiner relies upon “Sasaki, fig. 1, display 16, fig. 4, 5,
col. 7”. (Final Act. 3). With respect to Figure 4 of the Sasaki reference, the
Sasaki reference discloses:
The exemplary display image shown in FIG. 4 is the one
representing the maintenance information on the basis of
maintenance units, which is different from the board
arrangement of the wireless base station 1. The display image
shown in FIG. 4 is a close replica resembling the board
arrangement of the conventional wireless base station 20 shown
in FIG. 3 in order to keep the similarity with the conventional
maintenance work. That is, the display image 10 shown in FIG.
4 replicates the board image of the conventional base station 20
4
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
shown in FIG. 3 and identifies the boards by displaying on top
thereof corresponding names of the functional blocks of AMP
block, LNA block, modulation/demodulation block, baseband
processing (BB) block, wire transmission line I/F block,
supervisory control block, call processing block, SDM block and
FLD block in that order from the far left hand side of the screen.
(Sasaki, col. 7,11. 3—19).
We find the display image of Figure 4 to be a natural language
representation of the prior art hardware configuration shown in Figure 3.
Consequently, both Figures 3 and 4 by the nature of the information
conveyed meet the claim limitation “a display configured to display the one
or more errors using a natural language.”
Appellant presents general arguments in the Reply Brief in Sections
A—C and maintains that claim limitations cannot be interpreted in a vacuum
and that the Takada reference does not teach the claimed invention.
Appellant contends that “[t]he meaning of the term recommend is apparent
in light of the claimed limitation which describes recommending an
appropriate action to cure one or more errors determined by the
interpreting.” (Reply Br. 7; emphasis omitted).
Appellant has not identified any express definition or interpretation
from the Specification or provided any extrinsic evidence with which to
interpret the claim language. Moreover, we find that “recommend” is
generally used in paragraphs 12 and 47 of the Specification in the same
manner recited in the claims. Consequently, Appellant’s general argument
does not show error in the Examiner’s claim interpretation, findings of fact,
or conclusion of obviousness of independent claim 1.
5
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
Appellant further presents arguments to the claimed “configured to
store information corresponding to units of the base station.” (App. Br. 7—
9).
The Examiner maintains:
memory 17 is part of user terminal 16 when 17 is loaded into
terminal 16. Furthermore, the term "corresponding" is given its
reasonably broad meaning as required. Here, information
relating to units of the BS is considered information
corresponding to units of the BS. The examiner submits that
Sasaki's maintenance program and system data is relating to the
units of BS 13 and is relating to operational states of units of the
BS 13.
(Ans. 3). We agree with the Examiner’s factual findings and claim
interpretation.
Appellant contends:
The Office takes an overly broad interpretation in contrast to
reasonably broad interpretation for interpreting the terms. The
reasonable interpretation should have been based on the language
of the claims. The Applicants submit that the term “correspond”
should be interpreted in vacuum devoid of context of the claim
as a whole. Also, Sasaki is completely silent about any
information corresponding to the operational states of the units
in the memory device 17 or any other memory device. All that is
discussed is about program or system data in memory device 9
being used in memory device 17. The memory device 9 is used
to locally load the program or system data to a base station.
Sasaki does not discuss anything about information
corresponding to the units of the base system. In the light of
above, the Applicants believe that Sasaki does not teach the
claim, and does not make it obvious for a person skilled in the art
in light of other references Tadaka [sic], Rocamora, Dain and
Halloran.
6
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
(Reply Br. 7—8). We find Appellant’s arguments to be unpersuasive of error
in the Examiner’s factual findings or conclusion of obviousness of
independent claim 1. Appellant erroneously contends that “Applicants
submit that the term ‘correspond’ should be [sic, not be] interpreted in
vacuum devoid of context of the claim as a whole,” and Appellant presents a
general argument to all the references in the Final Office Action rather than
the two references applied in the rejection of representative independent
claim 1. As a result, Appellant’s general argument for patentability does not
show error in the Examiner’s findings of fact or conclusion of obviousness.
Appellant further contends that the Sasaki reference does not teach or
suggest the claimed “a display configured to display the one or more errors
using a natural language.” (App. Br. 9-10; Reply Br. 8). The Examiner
maintains “Sasaki’s fig. 4 disclosed ‘AMP BLOCK’, ‘LNA BLOCK’,
‘MODULATION/DEMODULATION BLOCK’, ‘BB BLOCK’, etc, and
LED’s indicating it[]s operational status. Sasaki’s fig. 4 displays plain texts
and illustrations of the operational status.” (Ans. 3). We agree with the
Examiner that the labels and LEDs provide a display configured to display
the one or more errors using a natural language, as recited in independent
claim 1.
Appellant further contends:
The block and/or LEDs illustrations are not natural human-
human communication language and require the engineer to use
a manual or by practice understand the error, which is not natural
language. Furthermore, dictionary provides the plain meaning as
“a language used as a native tongue by a group of speakers ”
(source:http://dictionary.reference.column/browse/natural-
language? s=t). The LED illustrations are not language used as a
native tongue by a group of speakers.
7
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
(Reply Br. 8). First, we note that Appellant’s dictionary definition does not
provide a relevant date to evidence proper interpretation at the time of the
invention. Second, we find the display of the Sasaki reference evidences the
presentation of a display on a screen, which is similar to the prior art LED
hardware device, but in “a display image on a screen of the
maintenance terminal 16. . . . The maintenance information is displayed on
the screen of the maintenance terminal 16 under the control of the control
software of the maintenance terminal 16.” (Sasaki col. 6,11. 61—62).
Consequently, the Sasaki reference displays an image, which corresponds to
the prior art housing body of the conventional wireless base station shown in
figure 2. (Sasaki col. 3,11. 66—67). Therefore, we find Appellant’s argument
does not show error in the Examiner’s factual findings or conclusion of
obviousness of representative independent claim 1.
Claim 6
With respect to dependent claim 6, Appellant contends:
The FOA sets forth the position that the features recited in claim
6 are rendered obvious by obvious by Sasaki’s Figures 4 and 5.
Appellants respectfully submit that neither these Figures nor
Sasaki’s entire disclosure or the other applied references,
disclose or render obvious the features recited in claim 6.
(App. Br. 10—11). We disagree with Appellant and note that the Examiner
relied upon the parent limitations of dependent claim 5 being taught by the
Rocamora reference and the claimed display being taught and suggested by
the Sasaki reference. (Final Act. 9). We find that the Sasaki reference
discloses “[t]he operator can immediately recognize where an error occurs
by simply watching the display image shown in FIG. 4 and can take
8
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
necessary steps to fix the problem in an expeditious manner.” (Sasaki col. 7,
11. 51—54). Consequently, we disagree with Appellant’s general contention.
With regard to dependent claim 6, Appellant’s contention amounts to
a general denial that fails to address the Examiner’s findings and is,
therefore, insufficient to be considered an argument for separate
patentability. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (“A statement which merely
points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for
separate patentability of the claim.”); In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed.
Cir. 2011) (“[W]e hold that the Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to
require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation
of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements
were not found in the prior art.”).
Appellant merely repeats the language of the claim without providing
separate arguments for patentability over the Rocamora reference relied
upon by the Examiner in the rejection. (Final Act. 9). Moreover,
Appellant’s argument does not show error in the factual findings or
conclusion of obviousness regarding the claimed “user equipment.”
We find the language of dependent claim 6 merely states an action
without further limiting the “user equipment.” We agree with the Examiner
that in the combination of teachings in the prior art combination, the
maintenance worker would determine the appropriate action, which may
include obtaining a replacement part and the user interface would be used in
the determination of the part to order. Consequently, Appellant’s general
contention does not show error in the Examiner’s factual findings or
conclusion of obviousness of obviousness of dependent claim 6.
9
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
We note that the Examiner identifies the Dain reference with regards
to ordering the parts user interface in section D of the Examiner’s Answer
(Ans. 3) and Appellant responded in section D of the of the Reply Brief
(Reply Br. 8). We find the Examiner’s discussion is in response to
Appellant’s arguments concerning arguments 6 and 7 in the Appeal Brief
with respect to independent claim 18, which relies upon the Dain reference.
Consequently, Appellant’s argument does not show error in the Examiner’s
factual findings or conclusion of obviousness of obviousness of dependent
claim 6.
Claim 18—25
With respect to claims 18—25, Appellant argues the claims together
and presents arguments to claim 18. We select independent claim 18 as the
representative claim for the group and will address Appellant’s argument
thereto. Appellant contends:
The FOA sets forth the position that “recommending, by
the UE, an appropriate action based on one or more errors
determined by the interpreting, wherein [. . .] the appropriate
action includes obtaining a replacement part” is rendered obvious
by Takada’s paragraph [0061].
However, Takada's paragraph [0061] refers to Takada’s
Figure 8 which does not include any action. Moreover[,] Takada
does not disclose or render obvious an appropriate action that
includes obtaining of a replacement part.
(App. Br. 11). We disagree with Appellant, and we agree with the Examiner
that paragraph 61 of the Takada reference teaches and fairly suggests the
detailed information of each suspected fault and cause thereof may require
10
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
obtaining a replacement part which is clearly taught and suggested by the
Dain reference.
Appellant further contends:
The FOA sets forth the position that “ordering the
replacement part by the UE using a link on an user interface of
the UE” is rendered obvious by Dain’s element 212 in Figure 2
and paragraph [0028]. However, Dain does not disclose
explicitly and it is not inherent presence of the claimed link on
the user interface.
(App. Br. 11). We agree with the Examiner that the Dain reference teaches
and fairly suggests a GUI to order replacement parts. (Ans. 3). We further
find the Dain reference teaches automatically ordering replacement parts, if
a part is needed, and tracking status of the replacement order. (Dain || 5,
18, 28, 30, 35, 37, 40, 41, 46, and Figs. 2-6).
Consequently, we find Appellant’s arguments do not show error in the
Examiner’s factual findings or conclusion of obviousness in the prior art
combination for representative independent claim 18. Appellant has not set
forth separate arguments for patentability of dependent claims 19—25. As a
result, these claims will fall with independent claim 18. 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
Claim 28
Appellant does not set forth separate arguments for patentability of
dependent claim 28. (App. Br. 11). Consequently, Appellant’s argument
does not show error in the Examiner’s factual findings or conclusion of
obviousness of obviousness of dependent claim 28. Asa result, we group
this claim as falling with parent independent claim 18. 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
11
Appeal 2016-004186
Application 13/305,457
CONCLUSIONS
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1—7, 18—25, and 28 based
upon obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness
rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 of claims 1—7, 18—25, and 28.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
12