Ex Parte Braun

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 26, 2012

09940616 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 26, 2012)

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.
09/940,616 08/29/2001 David A. Braun 10017258-1 5965
7590 03/26/2012
HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY
Intellectual Property Administration
P.O. Box 272400
Fort Collins, CO 80527-2400
EXAMINER
POPE, DARYL C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2612
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/26/2012 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 BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte DAVID A. BRAUN
_____________

Appeal 2010-001007
Application 09/940,616
Technology Center 2600
____________

Before MARC S. HOFF, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and
ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judges.

MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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Application 09/940,616

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of
claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
INVENTION
Appellant’s claimed invention is directed to a doorbell arrangement
which includes a user interface for entering a user code. “The user code is
indicative of a specific visitor. The doorbell arrangement also includes a
logic circuit for identifying the specific visitor. The identification of the
specific visitor is based on the entered user code. The arrangement further
includes a signal transmitter for transmitting a particular response signal.”
Spec. 2:15-20.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on
appeal.
1. A doorbell arrangement comprising:
a user interface for entering a user code indicative of a visitor;
a logic circuit for identifying the visitor based on the entered user
code; and
a signal transmitter for transmitting a particular response signal
wherein the particular response signal is based on the identification of the
visitor by the logic circuit.

THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Mozer US 5,657,380 Aug. 12, 1997
Lutes US 5,673,016 Sept. 30, 1997
Puchek US 6,496,595 B1 Dec. 17, 2002
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The following rejections are before us for review:
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1-3, 5-16, and 18-20 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lutes in view of Mozer.
2. The Examiner rejected claims 4 and 17 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Lutes in view of Mozer and further in view of
Puchek.

ISSUE
The pivotal issue is whether the Examiner erred in finding that the
combination of Lutes in view of Mozer teaches the limitation of: “a logic
circuit for identifying the visitor based on the entered user code,” as recited
in claim 1.

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
To establish prima facie obviousness of a claimed invention, all the
claim limitations must be taught or suggested by the prior art. See In re
Royka, 490 F.2d 981, 985 (CCPA 1974).

ANALYSIS
Appellant asserts that the Examiner has provided no motivation, other
than the Appellant’s own disclosure, to combine the cited references (Br. 9).
According to Appellant, the functionality of Lutes’ user interface is related
to permitting users to send a plurality of different coded sequences to a
display panel thereby causing different messages to be displayed on the
panel. (See Br. 9 and Lutes, col. 5, ll. 35-37.) Appellant asserts that “t]he
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coded sequences are not specific to each user,” and thus, not designed to
identify a visitor (Br. 9).
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments. We agree with the
Examiner that Lutes teaches coded sequences that are specific to each user
(Ans. 12). In particular, Lutes expressly states that each user can “insert
their respective assigned codes” (col. 5, ll. 39-41) (emphasis added).
Furthermore, Lutes teaches that the visitors possessing a particular code will
receive messages that the owners of the apparatus deem appropriate (col. 5,
ll. 25-26). Thus, Lutes teaches that each user is assigned a particular code
and based on that assigned code the user will receive appropriate messages.
Accordingly, the system identifies the user by identifying the specifically
assigned code and in response displays to the user appropriate messages.
We also agree that the Examiner did not rely on improper hindsight
because Mozer is offered as evidence to support that it would have been well
known to a skilled artisan that a chip can be used to control operations of a
doorbell system, including message delivery (Mozer, col. 5, ll. 1-46). In
particular, Mozer teaches that chip (34) can recognize messages and screen
queries, and respond with pre-stored or customized messages (col. 5, ll. 22-
45). Thus, we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 4) that a chip as disclosed by
Mozer, which identifies messages and responds to those messages with
appropriate pre-stored or customized responses, could be used to execute the
logic of Lutes to identify a specific assigned code by a user that identifies
the user (i.e., another way of recognizing a message) and respond with
appropriate responses.
Thus, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 and the rejection
of claim 13 which recites a similar limitation of “automatically identifying
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the visitor from the user code.” We also affirm the rejection of claims 2, 3,
5-10, 12, 14-16, and 18-20 which were not separately argued.
Appellant separately argues claim 11 which recites the limitation of
“the second communication device is a mobile telephone.” Appellant
asserts, that on the contrary, Mozer’s telephone interface 32 is a telephone
jack (see element 32, Figure 2 of Mozer) typically utilized in conjunction
with a non-mobile phone (Br. 11).
We do not agree with Appellant’s argument. We agree with the
Examiner that an interpretation consistent with Appellant’s own
Specification (Spec. 11:18-20) is that “a conventional telephone system
which utilizes a telephone jack such as Mozer’s, and as well utilizes a
cordless handset/receiver would have met the limitations of the claimed
mobile telephone” (Ans. 14) (emphasis added).
For the aforesaid reasons we also affirm the Examiner’s rejection of
claim 11.
We also affirm the rejections of claims 4 and 17 which were not
separately argued.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in finding that the combination of Lutes in
view of Mozer teaches the limitation of: “a logic circuit for identifying the
visitor based on the entered user code,” as recited in claim 1.

ORDER
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-20 is affirmed.
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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

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