Ex Parte Cook et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 25, 2013

10792662 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 25, 2013)

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.
10/792,662 03/04/2004 Colin N.B. Cook 2540-0704 3070
42624 7590 03/25/2013
DAVIDSON BERQUIST JACKSON & GOWDEY LLP
4300 WILSON BLVD., 7TH FLOOR
ARLINGTON, VA 22203
EXAMINER
DISTEFANO, GREGORY A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2175
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/25/2013 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte COLIN N.B. COOK and WARREN K. UNICE
____________

Appeal 2010-008042
Application 10/792,662
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, KRISTEN L. DROESCH, and
LYNNE E. PETTIGREW, Administrative Patent Judges.

PETTIGREW, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1, 4, 6, 9, 10,
1
and 12.
2
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1
The Examiner finally rejected claim 10 although it is missing from the first
page of the Final Office Action (Nov. 14, 2008). FOA 10; App. Br. 5; Ans.
9-10.
2
Claims 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, and 13-17 have been cancelled.
Appeal 2010-008042
Application 10/792,662

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
According to Appellants, their invention relates to the field of remote
computer access, and more specifically to virtual presence architectures and
methods of synchronizing a client computer’s mouse with a host computer’s
mouse. Spec. ¶ 0002.
Claims 1 and 9 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of the
invention:
1. A method of providing mouse synchronization in a
virtual presence client (VPC) of a virtual presence architecture,
comprising:
(a) detecting whether a specified number of mouse
movements have occurred;
(b) computing a logical position of the mouse in response
to detecting that the specified number of mouse movements
have occurred, said logical position corresponding to a position
where a cursor corresponding to the mouse should be located
on a host video of a remote computer;
(c) sending a stream of mouse-move messages to the
remote computer that synchronize the logical position of the
mouse and the position of a cursor on the host video of the
remote computer without operator intervention in response to
computing the logical position of the mouse; and
(d) periodically repeating step (a) and repeating steps (b)
and (c) when the specified number of mouse movements have
been detected to have occurred.
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Application 10/792,662

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Rejections on Appeal
The Examiner has rejected claims 1, 4, 6, 9, and 12 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hao (US 6,115,027, Sept. 5, 2000) and
Okahara (US 6,889,365 B2, May 3, 2005). Ans. 3-9.
The Examiner has rejected claim 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Hao, Okahara, and Schneider (US 2002/0038334
A1, Mar. 28, 2002). Ans. 9-10.
Issues on Appeal
Appellants contend that the Examiner used impermissible hindsight in
combining Hao and Okahara to reject claims 1, 4, 6, 9, and 12. App. Br. 9-
10.
3
Appellants also contend that the Examiner has not provided evidence
that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized a problem
with Hao and sought modifications to Hao, such as combining Hao with
Okahara. Id. With respect to claim 10, Appellants argue the rejection is
unsupported because the motivation asserted by the Examiner for combining
the references is based on the Examiner’s erroneous finding that Schneider’s
“target controller” serves the same function as Hao’s “agent.” App. Br. 10-
11.
Based on Appellants’ arguments, the issues on appeal are:
(1) Has the Examiner properly combined Hao and Okahara in
rejecting claims 1, 4, 6, 9, and 12?
(2) Has the Examiner properly combined Hao, Okahara, and
Schneider in rejecting claim 10?

3
We refer throughout this opinion to Appellants’ Substitute Appeal Brief,
dated Jan. 22, 2010.
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Application 10/792,662

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ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
contentions that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’
arguments. We adopt as our own the findings and reasoning set forth in the
Examiner’s Answer. We highlight and address the following findings and
arguments for emphasis.
Claims 1, 4, 6, 9, and 12 – § 103(a) Rejection over Hao and Okahara
In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner finds that Hao teaches all of the
limitations except “detecting whether a specified number of mouse
movements have occurred” and computing a logical position of the mouse in
response to such detection. Ans. 4. Instead of computing and sending
position information to a remote computer in response to detecting a certain
number of mouse or cursor movements, Hao captures cursor movement
during a pre-determined time interval, divides the captured movement into
sync pieces in terms of time, and transmits cursor position information at the
end of each sync piece. Ans. 3-4; Hao, col. 5, ll. 40-44; col. 6, ll. 17-61.
The Examiner finds that Okahara teaches the use of a movement
counter method for determining a “thinning ratio,” which regulates the
amount of cursor point information transmitted to a remote computer. Ans.
4-5; Okahara, col. 13, ll. 18-24; col. 14, l. 51 – col. 15, l. 27. The Examiner
also finds that Okahara teaches a time sampling method for determining a
thinning ratio, and further teaches that the counter method may be
operatively switched with the time sampling method. Ans. 5; Okahara, col.
13, ll. 30-39. Thus, the Examiner concludes, it would have been obvious to
a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to use the
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counter method of Okahara in place of the time interval method of Hao for
determining when to compute and send cursor position information to the
remote computer. Ans. 5.
Appellants contend that the Examiner must have used impermissible
hindsight in combining Hao and Okahara because “in order to support the
alleged motivation to combine, the [Examiner] took out of the proposed
combination the very element that they allegedly had in common [i.e., a
timer method] that caused the [Examiner] to combine the references in the
first place.” App. Br. 9. Appellants’ argument, however, is unpersuasive.
The Examiner does not rely on Okahara simply for teaching a timing
mechanism or for teaching a counter, but rather for teaching that a counter
may be substituted for a timing mechanism for determining when to send
position information. Ans. 5, 12. We agree with the Examiner that in view
of Okahara’s teaching that a counter and a timing mechanism are
interchangeable for measuring cursor movements, it would have been
obvious to an ordinarily skilled artisan to modify Hao to compute and send
position information after detecting a specified number of cursor movements
rather than at certain time intervals. Ans. 12.
We are also unpersuaded by Appellants’ contention that the
combination of Hao and Okahara does not render the claimed invention
obvious because a person of ordinary skill in the art would not have believed
there was a problem with Hao and thus would not have been motivated to
modify Hao. App. Br. 9. There is no requirement that the reason for
combining references be based on a particular problem recognized in an
individual reference so long as the Examiner provides some articulated
reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the conclusion of
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obviousness. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007)
(citing In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)). Here, the Examiner
has identified Okahara’s teaching that a movement counter and a timing
mechanism are interchangeable as a reason to modify Hao. We conclude
that the Examiner has provided sufficient reasoning as to why a person of
ordinary skill in the art would have replaced the time interval method of Hao
with the counter method of Okahara for determining when to compute and
send cursor position information to the remote computer.
For these reasons, we sustain the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of
claim 1 as well as claims 4, 6, 9, and 12, for which Appellants have not
made separate, detailed arguments. See App. Br. 9-10.
Claim 10 – § 103(a) Rejection over Hao, Okahara, and Schneider
Claim 10 depends from independent claim 9 and further recites “the
virtual presence server is in a PCI card installed in a PCI slot of the host
computer.” The Examiner relies on Schneider for this limitation, finding
that Schneider teaches that a “target controller” (i.e., a remote system that
controls a computer through remote communication) may be included on a
peripheral card of the target computer. Ans. 10 (citing Schneider, ¶ 0034).
The Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to implement agent 31 in Hao as a peripheral card (e.g., PCI
card) as taught by Schneider because Hao’s “agent” and Schneider’s “target
controller” serve a similar function, i.e., “receiving command information
from a controlling computer to control a target device.” Ans. 14.
Appellants argue that the Examiner’s rejection is unsupported because
the “function” of Schneider’s “target controller” and Hao’s “agent” is not the
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same. App. Br. 10-11. Appellants have not persuaded us that the Examiner
erred. First, Appellants appear to be arguing the references individually
when the rejection is based on the combination of references. App. Br. 10.
Second, we agree with the Examiner that Schneider’s target controller and
Hao’s agent perform a sufficiently similar function—receiving command
information from a controlling computer to control a target device—that it
would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to
implement Hao’s agent as a PCI card in the host computer. Accordingly, we
sustain the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of claim 10 over Hao, Okahara,
and Schneider.
CONCLUSION
On the record before us, we conclude that the Examiner did not err in
rejecting claims 1, 4, 6, 9, and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Hao and Okahara, and rejecting claim 10 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hao, Okahara, and Schneider.
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, and 12 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

ELD