Ex Parte WangDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 16, 201512518108 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 16, 2015) 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. 12/518,108 06/08/2009 Chunyan Wang WISPRO-SZ-00118 2328 88174 7590 04/16/2015 Flash Intellectual Property, Inc. Attn. Cheng-Ju Chiang P.O. Box 766 Chino, CA 91708 EXAMINER TO, TUAN C ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3662 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/16/2015 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 CHUNYAN WANG ____________ Appeal 2013-002685 Application 12/518,108 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before CHARLES N. GREENHUT, BRANDON J. WARNER, and LISA M. GUIJT, Administrative Patent Judges. GUIJT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Chunyan Wang (Appellant) appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s decision finally rejecting claims 1–14. 1 We have jurisdiction over this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). SUMMARY OF DECISION We REVERSE. 1 According to Appellant, the real party of interest is MediaTek Singapore Pte. Ltd. Br. 2. Appeal 2013-002685 Application 12/518,108 2 THE INVENTION Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed invention and reads as follows: 1. A POI displaying method for displaying information of at least one POI stored in a database on an electronic apparatus, comprising: (a) obtaining at least one POI according to a desired POI type; (b) obtaining at least one corresponding path according to the position of each obtained POI; (c) generating a POI gathering information of each corresponding path according to the at least one obtained POI; and (d) displaying the at least one corresponding path and the corresponding POI gathering information. THE REJECTION Claims 1–14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Onishi (US 2005/0085999 A1; published Apr. 21, 2005). ANALYSIS Regarding claim 1, Appellant argues, inter alia, that the Examiner erred in finding that the function of Onishi’s processing unit 29 discloses limitation (c) of claim 1. Br. 8. Appellant submits that the claim term POI gathering information is defined in Appellant’s Specification on pages 3 and 4, “e.g. in FIG. 4, a path region 402, an amount region 403, a density region 405, a shortest distance region 407, and a longest distance region 409.” Id. 8 (citing Spec., p. 3, ll. 25–27, p. 4., ll. 4–15, 20–29, Fig. 4). Appellant’s Specification defines the name of the road as a path. Spec., p. 3, ll. 27. Appellant contends that Onishi’s “map data is not equal to ‘POI gathering Appeal 2013-002685 Application 12/518,108 3 information of each corresponding path.’” Id. Appellant explains that “Onishi displays other information in the large structure after retriev[ing] information of [the] POI and the large structure that the POI is in, rather than displaying the POI gathering information based on the obtained POI.” Id. at 9. Appellant further points out that for each POI displayed in Onishi’s Figure 10, “POI gathering information such as ‘Amount 403’ and ‘Density 405’” is not generated or shown. Id. Appellant also argues that “Onishi has no teaching, suggestion, [or] motivation to be modified to become . . . claim 1 of the instant invention.” Br. 11. The Examiner finds that “Onishi includes all necessary components to implement the desired use of the claimed method” and reasons that “[i]t would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the system and method as taught by Onishi for obtaining a route for navigating as a result of locating and searching a POI in a same category along a route.” Ans. 2, 5. The Examiner determines that “Onishi teaches . . . that the map is generated according to a navigation method to contain the POI gather[ing] information such as the icon attached to the POI name.” Id. at 6 (emphasis added). We are persuaded by Appellant that the Examiner erred in finding that Onishi teaches generating POI gathering information, as claimed. When claim terminology is construed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, reading claim language in light of the specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). We find that POI gathering information means data about the number or density of, or the Appeal 2013-002685 Application 12/518,108 4 distance from a POI to a current location for, POIs on a path or road. Accordingly, we are persuaded by Appellant that the Examiner erred in finding that Onishi’s icon attached to the POI name, which is representative of data about the location of a POI within a large structure, such as a shopping mall, airport, train station, amusement park, or the like (see Onishi ¶ 10), is POI gathering information. Moreover, claim 1 requires “generating a POI gathering information of each corresponding path according to the at least one obtained POI.” (Br. 14, Claims App. (emphasis added)). We are persuaded by Appellant that, notwithstanding Onishi’s generation of data resulting in the display of potentially the number or density of POIs within a large structure, Onishi fails to disclose generating such data for a path or road. Finally, although Appellant’s argument that there no teaching, suggestion, or motivation (TSM) expressed in Onishi to make the Examiner’s proposed modification appears to be holding the Examiner to the old TSM standard, which is no longer required (see KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007)), the Examiner fails to provide any reasoning as to why one skilled in the art would modify Onishi to generate and display amount and density data for POIs corresponding to a path. “[R]ejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements; instead, there must be some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.” In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (citation omitted), cited with approval in KSR, 550 U.S. at 418. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2–7 depending Appeal 2013-002685 Application 12/518,108 5 from claim 1. Independent claim 8 recites “generating a POI gathering information of each path” (Br. 15, Claims App.), and the Examiner relies on the same findings and reasoning as relied upon for claim 1 to support the Examiner’s rejection of claim 8. For the reasons stated above, we also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 8, and claims 9–14 depending from claim 8. SUMMARY We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–14. REVERSED rvb Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation