Mark Charles. Davis

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 4, 2019

14311802 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 4, 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.
14/311,802 06/23/2014 Mark Charles Davis RPS920140168-US-NP 8895
109808 7590 09/04/2019
LENOVO/PANGRLE
Pangrle Patent, Brand & Design Law, P.C.
3500 W Olive Ave
3rd Floor
Burbank, CA 91505
EXAMINER
SHEN, QUN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2661
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/04/2019 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):
brian@ppbdlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte MARK CHARLES DAVIS
____________

Appeal 2018-007375
Application 14/311,802
Technology Center 2600
____________

Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JASON V. MORGAN, and
JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judges.

LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20, the only claims pending in the
application on appeal. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.

1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Lenovo Singapore Pte.
Ltd. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2018-007375
Application 14/311,802

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant’s Invention
Appellant’s invention generally relates to “communication of
information.” Spec. ¶ 1. Appellant’s Specification explains that “a user of a
communication device may desire not to be disturbed in instances where the
communication device receives communication signals” and “a firewall may
be implemented that operates in a stateful manner, for example, to determine
whether a particular communication signal results in issuance of a
notification to a user of a communication device.” Spec. ¶ 14. Claim 1,
which is illustrative of the claimed invention, reads as follows:
1. An apparatus comprising:
a processor;
memory operatively coupled to the processor wherein the
memory stores identifier information for a variety of individuals;
a network interface operatively coupled to the processor;
a display operatively coupled to the processor;
notification circuitry operatively coupled to the processor;
and
policy engine circuitry operatively coupled to the
processor that, responsive to receipt of identifier information for
an individual via the network interface, activates the notification
circuitry if, according to a match criterion, a match exists
between at least a portion of the received identifier information
and at least a portion of identifier information previously
transmitted via the network interface and stored in the memory.

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Application 14/311,802

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Rejections
Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) as being
anticipated by Qiu et al. (US 2011/0258454 A1; published Oct. 20, 2011)
(“Qiu”). Final Act. 2–3.
Claims 2–4, 9–12, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over the combination of Qiu and Das et al.
(US 2013/0097660 A1; published Apr. 18, 2013) (“Das”). Final Act. 4–6.
Claims 6–8, 13, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the combination of Qiu and Caswell et al.
(US 2006/0153176 A1; published July 13, 2006) (“Caswell”). Final Act. 6–
8.
Claims 15–18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the combination of Qiu and Baratakke et al.
(US 2005/0036511 A1; published Feb. 17, 2005) (“Baratakke”). Final
Act. 8–9.
Claim 5 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over the combination of Qiu and Huber et al. (US 2009/0299788 A1;
published Dec. 3, 2009) (“Huber”). Final Act. 9–10.

ANALYSIS
Section 102 Rejection
Appellant contends Qiu fails to disclose “a display operatively
coupled to the processor,” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 6. Appellant
argues “[t]he word ‘display’ does not appear in Qiu. Qiu does not disclose,
by a preponderance of the evidence therein, an apparatus that includes a
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Application 14/311,802

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display.” App. Br. 6. Appellant further argues the Examiner improperly
relies on components of devices provisioned by the manufacturing system,
as opposed to components of the manufacturing system, for disclosing the
claimed display. Reply Br. 2–5.
We do not find Appellant’s arguments persuasive. Qiu discloses that
“the PKI/identity management system includes two primary sub-systems: a
PKI/identity generation system 120 and a PKI/identity update system 130.”
Qiu ¶ 22. The Examiner finds, and we agree, Qiu depicts the PKI/identity
update system 130 as including a display, e.g., update monitor/reporter
element 136. Final Act. 3 (citing Qiu, Fig. 1B). Additionally, we note that
Qiu discloses that “[t]he whitelist reporter module 460 allows users to view
the status of a whitelist being process[ed] and view the history of any
whitelist changes.” Qiu ¶ 63.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument “Qiu is directed to a
distributed, networked system for manufactured devices” and the distributed,
networked system of Qiu is not a device, as required by claim 1. Reply
Br. 13. Claim 1 is directed to an “apparatus.” The definition of “apparatus”
includes “a system that allows something to function.” Microsoft Encarta
Dictionary 36 (2004). As such, the broadest reasonable interpretation of the
term “apparatus” includes a system of devices—e.g., Qiu’s PKI/identity
management system.
For the foregoing reasons, we are unpersuaded the Examiner erred in
finding Qiu discloses the claimed display.
Appellant further contends Qiu fails to disclose “memory operatively
coupled to the processor wherein the memory stores identifier information
for a variety of individuals,” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 6–8. Appellant
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argues Qiu, instead, discloses that the memory stores device identifiers and
not identifier information for a variety of individuals, as required by claim 1.
Id. (citing Qiu ¶¶ 5, 46–49, 63).
We find Appellant’s arguments unpersuasive. Qiu discloses that the
whitelist parser and correlator receives, parses, extracts, and correlates
identifiers to generate whitelists. Qiu ¶ 46. Qiu discloses that the identifiers
include a customer ID (CustID) “used to identify each of the network
operators” and that “[t]he CustID, along with the pairing information
(CustID, ID-Cs) is provided (e.g., uploaded) to the whitelist generation and
management system.” Qiu ¶ 49. As such, we agree with the Examiner
(Ans. 4–5) that Qiu discloses the disputed limitation.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded that the Examiner
erred in rejecting claim 1.

Section 103 Rejections
Regarding the rejection of claims 2–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103,
Appellant argues the rejections are improper because the Examiner fails to
provide a motivation to combine the cited references. App. Br. 11. We
agree.
“[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.” KSR Int’l v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). In
finding that the limitations recited in claim 2 would be obvious in view of
the teachings of Qiu and Das, the Examiner merely states “[t]herefore,
consider Qiu and Das’s teachings as a whole, it would have been obvious to
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one of skill in the art at the time of invention to incorporate Das’s teachings
in Qiu to provide a whitelist based device provisioning including wireless
communication network.” Final Act. 4. The Examiner fails to provide any
articulated reasoning as to why it would be obvious to combine the teachings
of Qiu and Das. As such, we are constrained by the record to not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claim 2.
Reasoning similar to the reasoning discussed above with respect to
claim 2 was provided with respect to the rejections of claims 6 (Final
Act. 7), 15 (Final Act. 8), and 5 (Final Act. 10). The Examiner failed to
provide any reasoning with respect to the rejections of claims 3, 4, 7–14, and
16–20. See Final Act. 4–9. Accordingly, we also do not sustain the
rejection of claims 3–20 for the same reasons.

DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(a)(2).
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2–20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103.
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-IN-PART