Ex Parte Evers

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 9, 2018

13695253 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 2018)

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.
13/695,253 10/29/2012 Christian Evers P6738US00 9050
30671 7590 03/13/2018
DITTHAVONG & STEINER, P.C.
Keth Ditthavong
44 Canal Center Plaza
Suite 322
Alexandria, VA 22314
EXAMINER
CONNER, SEAN M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2665
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/13/2018 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@dcpatent.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte CHRISTIAN EVERS
Appeal 2017-008479
Application 13/695,2531
Technology Center 2600
Before ERIC B. CHEN, JON M. JURGOVAN, and AARON W. MOORE,
Administrative Patent Judges.
JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
1 Appellant identifies Rohde & Schwarz GMBH & Co. KG as the real party
in interest. (Appeal Brief 1.)
Appeal 2017-008479
Application 13/695,253
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 23-32, 34-39, and 41^13.2 We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.3
CLAIMED INVENTION
The claims are directed to identifying persons through the use of
combined systems including an antenna system operating in the millimeter
or centimeter range, an optical camera system, and a video recorder system.
Spec. 4-5. Claims 23 and 34 are independent. App. Br. 10 and 12-13
(Claims App’x). Claim 23 is a method, and claim 34 is a system claim with
similar limitations to claim 23. Claim 23 is thus representative of the claims
argued on appeal, and is reproduced below with the argued claim limitations
shown in bold:
23. A method for identifying persons, which comprises the
following:
placing of a person to be identified in a scanner unit which
comprises a first system with a plurality of antennas which
are arranged in a matrix format and form a signal-recording
system and scan the person in a parallel manner using
electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength in a millimeter
2 Claims 1-22, 33, 40, and 44 have been canceled. (Appeal Brief 10 and 12-
14.)
3 Our Decision refers to the Specification (“Spec.”) filed October 29, 2012,
the Final Rejection (“Non-Final Act.”) mailed July 26, 2016, the Appeal
Brief (“App. Br.”) filed December 20, 2016, the Examiner’s Answer
(“Ans.”) mailed April 6, 2017, and the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed May
19, 2017.
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Application 13/695,253
range or centimeter range (SI), wherein the signal-recording
system also includes an optical camera which comprises a
second system and wherein the signal-recording system is
displaceable around the person to be identified within an
angle of 360°;
generating a multi-dimensional, especially three-dimensional,
image of body geometries of the person to be identified by the
scanner unit (S2);
storing the generated three-dimensional image of the person to
be identified as test data (S3);
processing of the test data and extraction from the test data of
biometric features necessary for identification of the person
(S4);
comparing the biometric features extracted from the person with
stored biometric features in order to determine the
identification of the person (S5); and
using one or more video recorders, which comprise a third
system, of persons for extracting the stored biometric
features;
wherein images from the first, the second and the third
systems are combined for identifying persons.
(App. Br. 10 — Claims App’x).
REJECTIONS
Claims 23-25, 27, 31, 34, 35, 38, and 43 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) based on McMakin (US 2007/0263907 Al, Nov. 15, 2007),
Rowe (US 2005/0232459 Al, Oct. 20, 2005), and Wang
(US 2007/0183663 Al, Aug. 9, 2007). Final Act. 5-10.
Claims 26 and 37 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on
McMakin, Rowe, Wang, and Jain (Jain, Ross, and Prabhakar, An
Introduction to Biometric Recognition, IEEE Transactions On Circuits
And Systems For Video Technology, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 2004).
Final Act. 10-11.
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Application 13/695,253
Claims 28-30, 36, and 39 stand rejected based on 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
based on McMakin, Rowe, Wang, and Juels (Juels, Molnar, and Wagner,
Security and Privacy Issues in E-passports, Proceedings of the First
International Conference on Security and Privacy for Emerging
Areas in Communications Networks (2005). Final Act. 11-13.
Claims 32, 41, and 42 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based
on McMakin, Rowe, Wang, and Kyle (US 2008/0292143 Al, Nov. 27,
2008). Final Act. 13-14.
ANALYSIS
In presenting arguments for patentability, Appellant groups
independent claims 23 and 34 together, and does not separately argue any of
the dependent claims. App. Br. 4.
Appellant acknowledges that McMakin teaches a system using a
plurality of antennas, that Rowe teaches an optical camera system, and that
Wang teaches a video camera system, all of which are used to identify
persons in the context of security and surveillance. App. Br. 9. However,
Appellant argues that none of these references teaches or suggests that all
three of these systems should be combined together, and for this reason the
claims are patentable. Id.
The Examiner states that combining the systems of McMakin, Rowe,
and Wang according to known methods yields predictable results. Final
Act. 7-8. In addition, the Examiner finds that a person of ordinary skill in
the art would have recognized that combining these systems enhances the
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Application 13/695,253
accuracy of identifying surveillance subjects over the capability of any one
of the systems individually. Id.
We discern no error in the Examiner’s findings or conclusion of
obviousness. The Supreme Court has stated “[although common sense
directs one to look with care at a patent application that claims as innovation
the combination of two known devices according to their established
functions, it can be important to identify a reason that would have prompted
a person of ordinary skill in the relevant field to combine the elements in the
way the claimed new invention does. This is so because inventions in most,
if not all, instances rely upon building blocks long since uncovered, and
claimed discoveries almost of necessity will be combinations of what, in
some sense, is already known.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398,
418-19 (2007) (“KSR”).
Here, the Examiner finds a person of ordinary skill would have
combined multiple systems to enhance accuracy in identifying subjects.
Final Act. 7-8. We agree. A person of ordinary skill readily would have
understood the benefit of combining different kinds of systems because
positive identification achieved through more than one system leads to
greater probability the identification of a subject is correct.
Appellant argues “it is an inventive leap to acquire and combine
images from all three systems when none of the three prior art references
disclose how to combine its images with any other images from another
system.” App. Br. 8. Appellant does not explain, however, why combining
images from different systems was “uniquely challenging or difficult for one
of ordinary skill in the art” or “represented an unobvious step over” the cited
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prior art. Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162
(Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418-19). For example, Appellant
does not explain why a person of ordinary skill would have encountered
difficulty in storing images from different systems in a common file to
compare with other images similarly stored. Appellant does not state that
images from different systems are somehow fused together in the claimed
invention in some nonobvious way.
Also, “[n]on-obviousness cannot be established by attacking
references individually where the rejection is based upon the teachings of a
combination of references.” In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed.
Cir. 1986) (citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981)). Appellant
argues the claimed invention is not obvious because no one reference shows
all three systems claimed. However, the Examiner is permitted to combine
the teachings of multiple references if a person of ordinary skill in the art
would have had a reason to combine them. Accordingly, we find
Appellant’s argument unpersuasive for this additional reason.
We also note that integration of different components, without more,
is insufficient to establish patentability. See In re Larson, 340 F.2d 965, 968
(CCPA 1965) (holding that use of one-piece construction for a brake drum
integral with a clamping means, instead of two separate pieces as in the prior
art reference, would be merely a matter of obvious engineering choice). The
claimed invention amounts to what one would expect when the three
systems are combined together — the systems are structured and operate the
same as they would separately.
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Accordingly, we find the Examiner has provided “some articulated
reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness.” KSR, 550 U.S. at 418 (quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988
(Fed. Cir. 2006)). We, therefore, sustain the rejection of independent claims
23 and 34 and their respective dependent claims, for which no separate
arguments are presented.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 23-32, 34-39, and
41—43 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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