Accenture Global Services Limited

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 1, 2022

2021002012 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 1, 2022)

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. 15/164,348 05/25/2016 Primrose MBANEFO 0095-0229 5247 113123 7590 03/01/2022 Harrity & Harrity, LLP 11350 Random Hills Rd. Suite 600 Fairfax, VA 22030 EXAMINER BLANCHETTE, JOSHUA B ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3626 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/01/2022 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): docket@harrityllp.com mpick@harrityllp.com ptomail@harrityllp.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte PRIMROSE MBANEFO and GREGORY L. SMITH __________ Appeal 2021-002012 Application 15/164,348 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and BRADLEY B. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judges. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-20, which constitutes all pending claims in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The Appellant’s disclosure relates to a collaboration tool for healthcare providers. Spec., Title. 1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). The Appellant identifies “Accenture Global Solutions Limited” as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2021-002012 Application 15/164,348 2 Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A device, comprising: a memory; a network interface communicatively coupled to one or more beacons; and one or more processors to: communicate with a first device to receive first data, the first data being associated with a set of entities; communicate with a second device to receive second data, the second data being associated with a set of communication sources and a set of communication mediums utilized by the set of entities and a user of the device; combine the first data and the second data into a user interface, the user interface providing a single location for displaying communications with the set of entities and with a system associated with the set of entities, the user interface including a first section that provides information that is persistently presented in the user interface, the user interface including a second section that provides information that is selectively presented in the user interface; provide the user interface for display; determine, from the network interface, a location of the device; determine, from the network interface, a location of the first device or the second device; generate directions from the device to the first device or the second device based on the location of the device and the location of the first device or the second device; determine a communication status associated with the second device, the communication status indicating an availability of a user of the second device; provide, in the user interface, the communication status associated with the second device; and determine a method of communication for the user of the device based on the communication status associated with the second device. Appeal 2021-002012 Application 15/164,348 3 REJECTIONS I. Claims 1 and 3-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Chopra et al. (US 2010/0198614 A1, pub. Aug. 5, 2010) (“Chopra”), DeGrazia (US 7,774,132 B2, iss. Aug. 10, 2010), Klein et al. (US 2005/0201362 A1, pub. Sept. 15, 2005) (“Klein”), and Pinard et al. (US 2008/0256192 A1, pub. Oct. 16, 2008) (“Pinard”). II. Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Chopra, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, and Sadiq et al. (US 2014/0195272 A1, pub. July 10, 2014) (“Sadiq”). III. Claims 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Chopra, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, and Alberth et al. (US 2011/0060996 A1, pub. Mar. 10, 2011) (“Alberth”). IV. Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Chopra, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, Alberth, and Ravi et al. (2014/0095631 A1, pub. Apr. 3, 2014) (“Ravi”). V. Claims 11, 12, and 14-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Chopra, Sadiq, DeGrazia, Klein, and Pinard. VI. Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Chopra, Sadiq, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, and Endicott (US 2003/0033079 A1, pub. Feb. 13, 2003). VII. Claims 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Chopra, Sadiq, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, and Pestka (US 2014/0278550 A1, pub. Sept. 18, 2014). Appeal 2021-002012 Application 15/164,348 4 OPINION Rejections I-IV Alleging error in the rejection of independent claim 1 under section 103 as being unpatentable over Chopra, DeGrazia, Klein, and Pinard, the Appellant contends the Examiner[’s] conclu[sion] that ‘[i]t would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to include the navigation of DEGRAZIA within the care team communication of CHOPRA because guiding users to locations related to their tasks helps the users efficiently perform the tasks’ . . . skips over any rational underpinning and focuses on an end result of the combination and not a reason for combining the references in the first place. Appeal Br. 12. (citing Final Act. 4). In particular, the Appellant argues that the rejection provides no explanation as to why the person of ordinary skill in the art would modify CHOPRA, which teaches a server as the device of claim l to “generate directions from the device to the first device or the second device based on the location of the device and the location of the first device or the second device,” as recited in claim l (emphasis added). The Examiner alleges that the server in CHOPRA functions as the device of claim l. See final Office Action, pages 3-4. As such, there is no motivation to have CHOPRA’s server determine directions from the server to the first device or second device. In fact, it does not make sense to be generating directions from the location of the server to the locations of the first device or the second device. Id. at 13. “Furthermore, [Appellant asserts that] there is no teaching of how such a combination would improve CHOPRA’s server such that the person of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated or desire to modify CHOPRA to generate directions from the location of the server and then have reason to look to DEGRAZIA to generate the directions.” Id. Appeal 2021-002012 Application 15/164,348 5 In response to Appellant’s argument, the Examiner states that Appellant’s “reasoning should not be accepted for the reasons described above in 1(a).” Ans. 4. In paragraph 1(a), in response to Appellant’s argument “that DeGrazia does not teach ‘determine, from the network interface, a location of the device,’ and ‘generate directions from the device to the first device or the second device based on the location of the device and the location of the first device or the second device,’ of claim 1” (Appeal Br. 10-11), the Examiner acknowledges that “DeGrazia does describe a separate navigation server that performs these steps, as Appellants argue, [yet the Examiner contends that] DeGrazia also teaches that a client device receives this information in real time and updates instructions accordingly.” Ans. 3 (citing DeGrazia 8:61-64) (emphasis omitted). The Examiner posits: In other words, upon receiving information from the server, the device determines location and generates new navigation instructions. While DeGrazia uses a navigation server to perform some location determinations and instruction generation, the local device also performs these steps by turning the server messages into information that is usable for the end user. Nothing in the claim language would stop this embodiment from reading on the limitation even if additional determinations and generation are performed by a separate server. Id. at 4 (emphasis omitted). According to the Examiner: “The combination of Chopra and DeGrazia need not involve a separate device because the end user devices of DeGrazia also determines location and generates instructions by processing messages from the navigation server.” Id. The Appellant responds that the Examiner’s position supports the Appellant’s argument because in DeGrazia “the determining is taught by the Appeal 2021-002012 Application 15/164,348 6 navigation server and the generating directions is taught from the client device . . . [which] is distinct from claim 1 which [recites] that the determining and the generating is done by the network interface of a single device.” Reply Br. 3. Further, the Appellant argues that “there is no motivation to combine DEGRAZIA with CHOPRA as CHOPRA does not teach a device which allows information to be obtained from third device in order to determine the location of a first or second device. As such, there is no motivation to combine DEGRAZIA and CHOPRA.” Id. at 4 (emphasis omitted). We are persuaded by the Appellant’ arguments of Examiner error. Chopra is directed to a medical communication system “for communicating patient medical information among health care practitioners.” Chopra ¶ 2. “At the heart of the medical communication system is a data-server that manages communication with the mobile stations carried by the health care practitioners in that facility.” Id. ¶ 22. The primary functions of Chopra’s server, on which the Examiner relies as the claimed device (see Final Act. 3), are to create, store and manage common task lists associated with patients and manage communication between mobile/computer stations and other medical systems (e.g., lab/test results system, patient records system). Id. ¶¶ 20-22. Chopra’s centralized and dynamic system allows for individual team members to have access to information and changes made by practitioners instantaneously to help increase communication between practitioners and ensure that information is updated and available to all patient caregivers, for example during shift changes. Id. ¶¶ 23-24. Chopra’s medical communication system, and in particular the central server helps overcome the challenge of “ensur[ing] that Appeal 2021-002012 Application 15/164,348 7 every member of the team remains aware of task assignments and prioritization unless individual messages are sent to each member.” Id. ¶ 5. DeGrazia “relates generally to a navigation system and more particularly to providing navigation directions.” DeGrazia 1:5-6. Figure 4 of DeGrazia, on which the Examiner relies (see Final Act. 4), shows how the navigation server operating in an enterprise network of Figure 1 provides navigation directions. Id. 1:50-58. In block 401 of DeGrazia’s Figure 4 a voice data natural language navigation request is received and in block 402 the natural language request is translated into a destination request. “In block 403 the server 22 determines a user location for the navigation request. The determination is made by communicating with a GPS, an access system, a wireless network and/or a location table. In block 404 the server 22 converts the destination objective into a destination location.” Id. 8:27-32. “In block 405 the server compares the user location and the destination location to a building map to determine a navigation path for the user.” Id. 8:36-39. The “server responds to the navigation request with voice data navigation directions” and “continually monitors the user and the path to determine whether a route change is needed.” Id. 8:39-44. When a route change is needed “the server 22 automatically updates navigation directions in real time over a maintained continuous communicative connection” and “a reconnection is avoided by using the same connection for each of the navigation request, the navigation directions and the automatic updates.” Id. 8:44-50. The advantage of DeGrazia’s invention over conventional navigation systems is: “First, the navigation server 22 exchanges communications with the portable navigation device 5 over the voice band connection 42. Second, the navigation server 22 can provide navigation Appeal 2021-002012 Application 15/164,348 8 directions to a wider variety of different networked devices 1, 3, 11 and 13, not just portable navigation devices having preconfigured decoders.” Id. ¶ 22:1-7. The difficulty with the Examiner’s rejection is twofold. First the Examiner has not shown how DeGrazia’s navigation server 22, which determines a user location for a navigation request from a device by communicating with a GPS, an access system, a wireless network and/or a location table, corresponds to the network interface of claim 1’s device. The device of claim 1 determines its location from the network interface, and generates directions from the device to another device. DeGrazia’s separate navigation server does not determine its own location, but rather, determines the user location for the navigation request by communicating with a GPS. As such, even if the navigation server of DeGrazia is “within the care team communication of Chopra” as proposed by the Examiner (Final Act. 4), the Examiner has not shown that the resulting device is capable of determining its location relative to another device, as required by claim 1. Second, the motivation and rationale for the combination does not adequately establish why an artisan would be inclined to do the modification proposed by the Examiner. In other words, the Examiner’s reasoning does not explain why a POSITA, without the benefit of hindsight, would be motivated to modify Chopra’s communication system in the first place because Chopra is concerned with providing a centralized data-server for real-time flow of patient health information. An invention “composed of several elements is not proved obvious merely by demonstrating that each of its elements was, independently, known in the prior art.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). Instead, a determination of Appeal 2021-002012 Application 15/164,348 9 unpatentability on a ground of obviousness must include “articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.” Id. (quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)). We agree with the Appellant that the Examiner’s rationale to combine the teachings of the references is predicated upon a conclusory statement that lacks articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness. The Examiner maintains that it would have been obvious to a POSITA to “include the navigation of DeGrazia within the care team communication of Chopra because guiding users to locations related to their tasks helps the users efficiently perform the tasks.” Final Act. 4. On the record before us, the Examiner’s reason for the proposed modification lacks a rational underpinning. It is well settled that obviousness “cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements.” Kahn, 441 F.3d at 988, accord KSR, 550 U.S. at 418. At best, the Examiner’s reasoning supports the conclusion that a POSITA could have modified Chopra with DeGrazia, but the Examiner does not adequately explain or support why an artisan would have done so. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). For the same reasons, we also do not sustain the rejections of dependent claims 2-10 because the additional cited references are not relied upon by the Examiner to remedy the discussed deficiency. Rejections V-VII For the same reasons discussed with respect to claim 1, we do not sustain the rejections of independent claims 11 and 17, which are rejected based on the same deficient reasoning. See Final Act. 15, 22. We also do Appeal 2021-002012 Application 15/164,348 10 not sustain the rejections of claims 12-16 and 18-20, which depend from independent claims 11 and 17, respectively. CONCLUSION The Examiner’s rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 are not sustained. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 3-6 103 Chopra, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard 1, 3-6 2 103 Chopra, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, Sadiq 2 7-9 103 Chopra, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, Alberth 7-9 10 103 Chopra, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, Alberth, Ravi 10 11, 12, 14- 16 103 Chopra, Sadiq, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, 11, 12, 14- 16 13 103 Chopra, Sadiq, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, Endicott 13 17-20 103 Chopra, Sadiq, DeGrazia, Klein, Pinard, Pestka 17-20 Overall Outcome 1-20 REVERSED