Ex Parte Scofield et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 15, 201713587798 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 15, 2017) 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. 13/587,798 08/16/2012 Christopher L. Scofield INRIP 145US 7313 92096 7590 11/17/2017 Cooper Legal Group LLC 6505 Rockside Road Suite 330 Independence, OH 44131 EXAMINER KLEINMAN, LAIL A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3668 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/17/2017 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): docketing@cooperlegalgroup.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHRISTOPHER L. SCOFIELD, KUSH G. PARIKH, and WILLIAM J. SCHWEBEL Appeal 2015-006998 Application 13/587,798 Technology Center 3600 Before BRETT C. MARTIN, ANNETTE R. REIMERS, and JEFFREY A. STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judges. REIMERS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Christopher L. Scofield et al. (Appellants) appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s decision to reject under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a): (1) claims 5—13, 15—17, and 19-46 as unpatentable over Rafiah (US 2003/0109266 Al, published June 12, 2003), and Kon (US 2009/0157298 Al, published June 18, 2009); and (2) claims 14 and 18 as unpatentable over Rafiah, Kon, and Bechtolsheim (US 2001/0025222 Al, published Sept. 27, Appeal 2015-006998 Application 13/587,798 2001). Claims 1—4 have been cancelled.1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE.2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claimed subject matter “relates generally to techniques for assessing inter-modal passenger travel options based on multiple types of information.” Spec. 12, Figs. 1, 4. Claims 5, 29, 33, and 39 are independent. Claims 5 and 33 are illustrative of the claimed subject matter and recite: 5. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving information about a starting location and a destination location in a geographic area; determining, by one or more configured computing systems, multiple alternative travel options for a user to travel from the starting location to the destination location at a future time, the multiple alternative travel options each using a distinct combination of one or more modes of transportation from multiple available modes of transportation, wherein one of the multiple modes of transportation involves a private vehicle of the user traveling on one or more roads in the geographic area, wherein another of the multiple modes of transportation includes a mass transit system operating in the geographic area, and wherein the multiple alternative travel options include at least 1 Appellants submitted an Amendment After Final Action proposing to cancel claims 1—4. See Amendment under 37 C.F.R. 41.33 and 37 C.F.R. 1.116, 1— 2 (filed Jan. 29, 2015). In the Advisory Action, the Examiner stated that “the proposed amendment(s)” “will be entered.” Adv. Act. Summary Sheet PTOL—303 (mailed Feb. 20, 2015). 2 Should there be further prosecution in this application, including any review for allowance, the Examiner may wish to review the claims for any 35 U.S.C. §101 issues. 2 Appeal 2015-006998 Application 13/587,798 one travel option using the private vehicle of the user and at least one travel option using the mass transit system; obtaining, by the one or more configured computing systems, information about traffic conditions on the one or more roads at the future time by predicting at a current time the traffic conditions on the one or more roads at the future time; obtaining, by the one or more configured computing systems, transit vehicle deviation information that indicates expected differences at the future time between scheduled and actual arrival times for transit vehicles of the mass transit system at one or more transit embarkation locations, the obtaining of the transit vehicle deviation information including predicting at the current time the expected differences at the future time between the scheduled and actual arrival times; assessing, by the one or more configured computing systems, costs associated with using each of the multiple alternative travel options to travel from the starting location to the destination location at the future time, the assessed costs being based at least in part on the obtained information about the traffic conditions and on the obtained transit vehicle deviation information; and providing information about one or more of the multiple alternative travel options in a manner that reflects the assessed costs, to enable the user to use one of the multiple alternative travel options to travel at the future time from the starting location to the destination location. 33. A configured system, comprising: one or more processors of one or more computing devices; and one or more modules that are configured to, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, assess travel options for one or more users by, for each of the one or more users: determining one or more alternative travel options for the user to travel from a starting location to a destination location at 3 Appeal 2015-006998 Application 13/587,798 an indicated time, wherein at least one of the multiple modes of transportation involves private vehicles traveling on one or more roads and at least one of the multiple modes of transportation involves a mass transit system operating in a geographic area that includes the one or more roads, and wherein at least one of the alternative travel options uses the mass transit system; obtaining information about traffic conditions on the one or more roads for the indicated time; predicting differences between scheduled and actual arrival times corresponding to the indicated time at one or more transit locations for transit vehicles of the mass transit system; assessing the one or more alternative travel options for the user based at least in part on the obtained information about the traffic conditions at the indicated time and on the predicted differences between the scheduled and actual arrival times at the one or more transit embarkation locations; and providing information for the user about the one or more alternative travel options in a manner that reflects the assessing. ANALYSIS Obviousness over Rafiah and Kon Claims 5—13, 15—17, and 19—28 Independent claim 5 is directed to a computer-implemented method including the step of “obtaining, by the one or more configured computing systems, transit vehicle deviation information that indicates expected differences at the future time between scheduled and actual arrival times for transit vehicles of the mass transit system at one or more transit embarkation locations,” wherein “the obtaining of the transit vehicle deviation information includes] predicting at the current time the expected differences at the future time between the scheduled and actual arrival times.” Appeal Br. 38, Claims App. The Examiner looks to Kon for this limitation, in 4 Appeal 2015-006998 Application 13/587,798 particular, paragraphs 102 and 148 of Kon. See Final Act. 15 (“Public transportation information, including delay information due to accident and traffic — See at least 102; Delay state of public transport — See at least 1148.”) (emphasis omitted). Kon discloses that “[t]he traffic data 222 is recorded with predefined route schedule information (e.g., information on time table) of each public transportation such as train and bus, information related to the route of the public transportation such as route delay information due to accident and traffic.” Kon 1102, Fig. 1. Kon further discloses that “the arrival time calculating portion 130 checks the delay state of the public transportation based on the traffic data, and calculates the arrival time reflecting the relevant delay.” Kon| 148, Fig. 1. In this case, the Examiner fails to explain how Kon’s disclosure of “route delay information due to accident and traffic” and calculation of “the arrival time reflecting the relevant delay” is indicative of “expected differences at the future time between scheduled and actual arrival times for transit vehicles of the mass transit system” and/or “predicting at the current time the expected differences at the future time between the scheduled and actual arrival times.” See Final Act. 15; see also Ans. 5; Appeal Br. 19-20. Although we acknowledge that Kon provides updated arrival times based upon current delays, this is not the same as predicting future delays (i.e., expected differences at the future time between scheduled and actual arrival times). Kon merely provides a real-time, updated arrival time. Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 5 and its dependent claims 6—13, 15—17, and 19—28 as unpatentable over Rafiah and Kon. 5 Appeal 2015-006998 Application 13/587,798 Claims 29—46 Each of independent claims 29 and 33 includes the step of predicting differences between scheduled and actual arrival times corresponding to the indicated time at one or more transit locations for transit vehicles of the mass transit system. See Appeal Br. 44, 46 Claims App. Similarly, independent claim 39 requires that “received assessment information” is at least in part based on “information about predicted differences between scheduled and actual arrival times corresponding to the one or more indicated times at one or more transit locations for transit vehicles of the mass transit system.” See id. at 47 Claims App. The Examiner looks to Kon for these limitations, in particular, paragraphs 102 and 148 of Kon. See Final Act. 30, 33, 38 (“Public transportation information, including delay information due to accident and traffic — See at least 102; Delay state of public transport — See at least |148.”) (emphasis omitted). Similar to that discussed above for claim 5, the Examiner fails to explain how Kon’s disclosure of “route delay information due to accident and traffic” and calculation of “the arrival time reflecting the relevant delay” is indicative of predicting differences between scheduled and actual arrival times corresponding to the indicated time (i.e., the beginning travel time) at one or more transit locations for transit vehicles of the mass transit system. See Final Act. 30, 33, 38; see also Ans. 5, 9, 10; Appeal Br. 19-20, 26, 30- 31,33. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 29, 33, and 39 and their respective dependent claims 30- 32, 34—38, and 40-46 as unpatentable over Rafiah and Kon. 6 Appeal 2015-006998 Application 13/587,798 Obviousness over Rafiah, Kon, and Bechtolsheim Claims 14 and 18 The Examiner’s rejection of claims 14 and 18 as unpatentable over Rafiah, Kon, and Bechtolsheim is based on the same unsupported findings and conclusions discussed above with respect to independent claim 5. See Final Act. 43—45. The Examiner does not rely on Bechtolsheim to remedy the deficiencies of Kon. Accordingly, for reasons similar to those discussed above for claim 5, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 14 and 18 as unpatentable over Rafiah, Kon, and Bechtolsheim. DECISION We REVERSE the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 5—13, 15—17, and 19-46 as unpatentable over Rafiah and Kon. We REVERSE the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 14 and 18 as unpatentable over Rafiah, Kon, and Bechtolsheim. REVERSED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation