Ex Parte Carey

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 13, 2014

11302725 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 13, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte RICHARD CAREY
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Appeal 2012-009765
Application 11/302,725
Technology Center 2600
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Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM,
Administrative Patent Judges.

FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2012-009765
Application 11/302,725

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the final
rejection of claims 1–5 and 7–26. Claim 6 has been canceled. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse.
We have reviewed Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief (Br.
11–17) that the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–5 and 7–26 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Marrah (US 6,728,522 B1; Apr.
27, 2004), Appellant’s Admitted Prior Art (“AAPA”) found at paragraphs
0007 and 0008 of the Specification, Kaplan (US 2007/0069946 A1;
published Mar. 29, 2007), and Lamb (US 2003/0193394 A1; published Oct.
16, 2003) (Ans. 4–19) is in error, and the Examiner’s response to
Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief (Ans. 20–21).
We agree with Appellant that AAPA neither teaches nor suggests
limitation [c] of independent claim 1 (see Br. 12–15). We find that
paragraphs 0006–0009 of the Specification describes the state of the art with
respect to digital code formatting for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) service relating to Weather Radio Specific Area
Message Encoding (NWR SAME) as having various fields identifying
geographic regions. However, we find that AAPA does not disclose an
“associated area identifier” to “automatically identify possible associated
areas in proximity to the selected home geographical area” (limitation [c]) as
recited in independent claim 1 and as similarly recited in remaining
independent claims 13, 18, 20, 21, and 24.
Based on the foregoing determination, we concur with Appellant’s
main contention (see Br. 14–15) that the Examiner erred in finding that
AAPA, and thus the combination of references, teaches or suggests an
Appeal 2012-009765
Application 11/302,725

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“associated area identifier” to “automatically identify possible associated
areas in proximity to the selected home geographical area” (limitation [c]) as
recited in independent claim 1 and as similarly recited in remaining
independent claims 13, 18, 20, 21, and 24.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
independent claims 1, 13, 18, 20, 21, and 24, as well as dependent claims 2–
5, 7–12, 14–17, 19, 22, 23, 25, and 26 depending respectively therefrom.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–5 and 7–26 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Marrah, AAPA, Kaplan, and Lamb.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–5 and 7–26 is reversed.

REVERSED

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