Ex Parte Stauder et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 29, 201411547372 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 29, 2014) 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. 11/547,372 10/03/2006 Jurgen Stauder PF040055 3174 24336 7590 09/30/2014 TUTUNJIAN & BITETTO, P.C. 425 Broadhollow Road, Suite 302 Melville, NY 11747 EXAMINER NGUYEN, KIM T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2163 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/30/2014 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte JURGEN STAUDER, IZABELA GRASLAND, and JOEL SIROT Appeal 2012-005045 Application 11/547,372 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before MARC S. HOFF, DAVID M. KOHUT, and ANDREW J. DILLON, Administrative Patent Judges. DILLON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Non-Final Rejection of claims 1–3, 5, and 6. Claim 4 has been cancelled. App. Br. 3. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants’ invention is directed to a device for multimedia data retrieval, said multimedia data being associated with an active component, said device being characterized in that, depending on an external event, some of the active components trigger an action that make the user aware of the multimedia data associated with said active components See Abstract. Appeal 2012-005045 Application 11/547,372 2 Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter, with key disputed limitations emphasized: 1. A device for multimedia item retrieval, comprising: a storage medium and processing means, the storage medium stores at least one multimedia item associated with an active component and at least one date; the processing means requests time information from a multimedia asset management system and sends remembering information to a user interface, the processing means comprising an execution platform for executing the active component by using said processing means, the active component for processing both the time information sent by the multimedia asset management and the at least one date and, depending on the result of such processing, sending the remembering information to said user interface, the remembering information comprising a trigger of an action that makes a user aware of the multimedia item. The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability: Nakamura US 2004/0201740 A1 Oct. 14, 2004 THE REJECTION The Examiner rejected claims 1–3, 5, and 6 under 35 U.S.C. §102(e) as anticipated by Nakamura. Ans. 4–6.1 ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ contentions in the Appeal Brief (App. Br. 6–13) and the Reply Brief (Reply 1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the Appeal Brief filed July 18, 2011; the Examiner’s Answer mailed October 28, 2011; and, the Reply Brief filed December 27, 2011. Appeal 2012-005045 Application 11/547,372 3 Br. 5–8) that the Examiner has erred. We have also reviewed the findings set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Non- Final Rej. 2–5), and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief (Ans. 4–6). We highlight and amplify certain teachings and suggestions of the references as follows. Appellants argue that Nakamura fails to disclose or suggest the claimed “remembering information” which Appellants expressly claim as “a trigger of an action that makes a user aware of the multimedia item.” App. Br. 8. The Examiner, cites Nakamura, ¶¶ 42–52 and ¶ 27 which the Examiner found discloses the claimed “remembering information.” Additionally, in response to Appellants’ arguments, the Examiner cites ¶¶ 29–30 of Nakamura which the Examiner finds describes “prompting to the user a calendar which contains the events, identified by an event titles such as Dad's birthday, Nicholas's Birthday, Summer break, Spring break, New York vacation, Paris vacation, 10th anniversary, Silver anniversary and etc. which makes the user be aware of.” Ans. 6. Claim Interpretation “[T]he words of a claim ‘are generally given their ordinary and customary meaning.’” Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc) (internal citations omitted). The “ordinary and customary meaning of a claim term is the meaning that the term would have to a person of ordinary skill in the art in question at the time of the invention, i.e., as of the effective filing date of the patent application.” Id. at 1313. Appeal 2012-005045 Application 11/547,372 4 Here, a proper interpretation of “remembering information” is necessary to determine if the Examiner has met the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992)). Appellants’ Specification describes “remembering information” as being generated in response to time information being sent to the claimed multimedia asset management system. When that time information corresponds to an anniversary of the creation date, the corresponding agent will send the content of the multimedia item to the user interface 3 or will send to the user interface 3 a remembering information informing the user that the database contains a multimedia item, for instance a photo representing the first steps of his young daughter, on that day some years ago. See Spec. ¶ 28. Nakamura We have reviewed the disclosure of Nakamura and we find that the relied upon portions thereof describe prompting the user “for the name of the data source, which is preferably a calendar, based on which user seeks to organize images stored on image capture device 23.” ¶ 29. Thereafter Nakamura describes the use of such named calendars to organize images. Appeal 2012-005045 Application 11/547,372 5 We find nothing within the cited portions of Nakamura which discloses or suggests the generation of “remembering information” which is sent to the user by a processor to make the “user aware of the multimedia item” as claimed. We find those portions of Nakamura which describe prompting the user for calendar names utilized to store images are not “remembering information.” CONCLUSION The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–3, 5, and 6 under § 102(e). ORDER The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims is reversed. REVERSED kme Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation