Julia English. Winter

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 26, 2019

14700722 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 26, 2019)

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.
14/700,722 04/30/2015 Julia English WINTER WIJE0102PUSP 6234
22045 7590 09/26/2019
Brooks Kushman
1000 Town Center
22nd Floor
Southfield, MI 48075
EXAMINER
MUSHAMBO, MARTIN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2674
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/26/2019 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@brookskushman.com
kdilucia@brookskushman.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte JULIA ENGLISH WINTER
____________________

Appeal 2019-000627
Application 14/700,722
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, MARC S. HOFF, and JOHN P.
PINKERTON Administrative Patent Judges.

HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a non-final rejection of
claims 1–15. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellant’s invention provides a method for teaching chemical
reaction mechanisms to a user. A graphical representation of a first molecule
is presented to a user. A first atom selection or bond selection is received
from the user by a pointing device. A first set of atom features or bond
features are graphically displayed to the user. The user provides input to
alter bonding or structure of the first molecule, and a graphical display of an
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altered molecule representing the user’s selection is presented on the display.
Spec. ¶ 6.
Claim 1 is exemplary of the claims on appeal:
1. A method comprising:
a) presenting a user with a graphical representation of a first
molecule including a plurality of atoms, the graphical
representation being presented on a display;
b) receiving a first atom or bond selection from the user by a
pointing device;
c) presenting a first set of atom features to the user for the first
atom or bond
selection, the first set of atom features including an atom's lone
pairs wherein a user taps on an atom to show the atom's lone
pairs which can be used to form bonds;
d) receiving a first input from the user to alter bonding or
structure of the first
molecule; and
e) displaying an altered molecule from the first input.
Claim Appendix.
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art in rejecting the
claims on appeal:
Smith et al. US 2013/0222265 A1 Aug. 29, 2013
Banerjee et al. US 2009/0177455 A1 July 9, 2009

Claims 1–15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Smith and Banerjee.
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief
(“Appeal Br.,” filed February 20, 2018) and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,”
mailed July 23, 2018) for their respective details.

ISSUES
Appellant’s arguments present us with the following issues:
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1. Does the combination of Smith and Banerjee teach or suggest
presenting a first set of atom features to the user, including an atom’s lone
pairs?
2. Does the combination of Smith and Banerjee teach or suggest
manipulating a depiction of electrons by the user dragging said electrons to
atoms or other bonds?
3. Does the combination of Smith and Banerjee teach or suggest that a
user breaks a bond by selecting a bond and then dragging from the center of
the bond to the atom which will receive electrons from the bond?
4. Does the combination of Smith and Banerjee teach or suggest clues
provided to indicate atoms that are to be involved in a mechanism?
5. Does the combination of Smith and Banerjee teach or suggest
presenting the user with a graphical representation of a second molecule, and
receiving input from the user to move electrons from the first molecule to
the second molecule to form a bond?

ANALYSIS
CLAIMS 1–5, 9, 10, AND 12–15
Appellant argues that neither Smith nor Banerjee teaches or suggests
“presenting a first set of atom features to the user for the first atom or bond
selection, the first set of atom features including an atom’s lone pairs
wherein a user taps on an atom to show the atom’s lone pairs which can be
used to form bonds.” Appeal Br. 3–4. Appellant contends that Banerjee’s
teaching on this topic lacks “any disclosure that the lone pair of electrons
can be used to form bonds.” Appeal Br. 4.
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We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred. First, we agree with the
Examiner that the claim recites only an intended use that an atom’s lone
pairs “can be used” to form bonds. Ans. 13. We agree with the Examiner’s
finding that Banerjee teaches display of an atom’s lone pairs. “The ‘Pair’
and ‘Single’ buttons are used to assign a lone pair of electrons or a single
electron to an atom.” Banerjee ¶ 80, Fig. 3. We observe that Banerjee also
teaches that “FIG. 7 is a screen shot of an animation from showing the
double bond disappearing. The two electrons, represented by ‘..’, are clearly
visible”. Banerjee ¶ 82. Last, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that
“lone pairs are known based on the periodic table group and that there are no
chemical bonding without lone pairs.” Ans. 14.
We conclude that the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1–5, 9,
10, and 12–15 over the combination of Smith and Banerjee. Thus, we sustain
the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection.
CLAIM 6
Appellant argues that Smith does not disclose the ability of a user to
drag a depiction of electrons to atoms or other bonds. Appeal Br. 5. We do
not agree with Appellant. Smith teaches that “the user may edit the chemical
structure representation 106 by selecting an atom or bond location in the
chemical structure representation. The atom or bond location may be
selected by, for example, delivering a tap gesture upon the input interface at
a location corresponding to the atom or bond in the working view.” Smith
¶ 57. Smith further teaches that “the user translates a chemical structure
representation 300 within the graphical display . . . using a multi-touch drag
gesture.” Smith ¶ 58.
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We conclude that the Examiner did not err in rejecting claim 6 as
being unpatentable over Smith and Banerjee. Thus, we sustain the § 103(a)
rejection of claim 6.
CLAIM 7
Appellant argues that Smith fails to teach or suggest a user breaking a
bond “by first selecting a bond and then dragging from the center of the
bond to the atom which will receive electrons from this bond.”
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument. Smith teaches a
variety of chemical structure manipulations that may be accomplished by a
user performing finger drags, pinches, and similar manual maneuvers. See
Smith Figs. 3–18. The Examiner finds that Smith’s teaching of a multi-
finger selection “is pretty much a grab feature of the chemical
structure/molecule and moving the whole thing in a specific direction.” Ans.
10. The user “translates a chemical structure representation 300 within the
graphical display . . . using a multi-touch drag gesture.” Smith ¶ 58. “For
example, if the user wishes to translate the chemical structure representation
300 to the right . . . the fingers 302 are dragged along the input interface 100
to the right.” Id. We agree with the Examiner that the various teachings of
Smith suggest the claimed selection and dragging of a bond from one atom
to another. For example, Figure 4 of Smith depicts using a drag gesture for
lengthening a molecular chain. Smith ¶ 59. We find that lengthening a
molecular chain necessarily involves the creation of new chemical bonds,
which includes atoms that will receive electrons from such a bond.
We further find that Smith suggests that there are a finite number of
alternatives involved in a touch-based user interface for chemical structure
editing, and the person having skill in the art would have found it obvious,
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from the explicit teachings of Smith, to break a bond by dragging an atom
from one position on a displayed chemical structure to another position. We
further determine that Smith teaches joining two chemical structure
representations together by performing a pinch gesture. Smith ¶ 66. “[T]he
user joins the two chemical structure representations 1302, 1306 together at
a bond location 1402 by originating the pinch gesture at chemical bonds in
the first and second chemical representations.” Id.
We conclude that the Examiner did not err in rejecting claim 7 as
being unpatentable over Smith and Banerjee. Thus, we sustain the §
103(a) rejection of claim 7.
CLAIM 8
Appellant argues that the Examiner failed to cite any portion of Smith
in support of the finding that Smith teaches “clues are provided to indicate
atoms that are to be involved in a mechanism.” Appeal Br. 5.
Appellant’s argument is not persuasive, in view of the Examiner’s
Answer. The Examiner finds, and we agree, that upon receiving a user input
to change an atom label, Smith displays “contextual menu 806 having a
selection of atom labels” from which a user may choose. Smith ¶ 63, Fig. 8.
We conclude that the Examiner did not err in rejecting claim 8 over
Smith and Banerjee. Thus, we sustain the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection.
CLAIM 11
Appellant argues that Smith fails to teach or suggest “presenting the
user with a graphical representation of a second molecule including a
plurality of atoms, the graphical representation of the second molecule being
presented on a display” and “receiving input from the user to move
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electrons from the first molecule to the second molecule to form a bond.”
Appeal Br. 6.
We do not agree with Appellant. The essence of Smith’s entire
invention is to allow a user to edit a chemical structure representation. Smith
¶ 57. The user selects an atom or bond location by a tap gesture, and may
modify the structure by selecting a representation of a chemical structure
element 206 from a menu. Id. Smith then teaches a large variety of editing
techniques the user may employ. Smith ¶¶ 59-67. “In certain embodiments,
the user joins two chemical structure representations together by performing
a fling gesture.” Smith ¶ 67.
We conclude that the Examiner did not err in rejecting claim 11 as
being unpatentable over Smith and Banerjee. Thus, we sustain the §
103(a) rejection of claim 11.

CONCLUSIONS
1. The combination of Smith and Banerjee teaches presenting a first
set of atom features to the user, including an atom’s lone pairs.
2. The combination of Smith and Banerjee teaches manipulating a
depiction of electrons by the user dragging said electrons to atoms or other
bonds.
3. The combination of Smith and Banerjee teaches that a user breaks a
bond by selecting a bond and then dragging from the center of the bond to
the atom which will receive electrons from the bond.
4. The combination of Smith and Banerjee teaches clues provided to
indicate atoms that are to be involved in a mechanism.
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5. The combination of Smith and Banerjee teaches presenting the user
with a graphical representation of a second molecule, and receiving input
from the user to move electrons from the first molecule to the second
molecule to form a bond.
ORDER
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–15 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED