Ex Parte Hatambeiki et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 13, 2016

12956154 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 13, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/956, 154 11/30/2010 Arsham Hatambeiki
34018 7590 06/15/2016
GREENBERG TRAURIG, LLP
77 WEST WACKER DRIVE
SUITE 3100
CHICAGO, IL 60601-1732
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
81230.141US2 8854
EXAMINER
DURKIN, JAMES T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2173
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/15/2016 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):
j arosikg@gtlaw.com
chiipmail@gtlaw.com
escobedot@gtlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ARSHAM HATAMBEIKI, BRIAN A. TRUONG,
and HAN-SHENG YUH
Appeal2014-006205
Application 12/956, 154
Technology Center 2100
Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, MONICA S. ULLAGADDI, and
JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges.
KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
.6. .... ,1 .... ,....,-TTr'l.r-"\l\-1,....Al/'\.r'" , .. T"""1 •-, Appeuants' appeal unaer j) u.~.L. s U4~aJ rrom tne bxammer s
final rejection of claims 1-24, which constitute all the claims pending in this
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' invention relates to a hand-held remote control for
operating various appliances that contains a user-customizable graphic
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Universal Electronics
Inc. (App. Br. 2).
Appeal2014-006205
Application 12/956, 154
display including soft keys for commands. Claim 1 is illustrative of the
invention and reads as follows (the contested limitations are italicized):
1. A computer-readable media embodied on a physical, non-
transient memory device having instructions for creating a user
interface for provision to a hand-held device adapted to control
functional operations of one or more appliances, the
instructions performing steps comprising:
receiving input to create a widget which is activatable via
the user interface of the handheld device to cause the hand-held
device to perform at least one action wherein the at least one
action includes an action in which the hand-held device is
caused to issue a command communication for a specific target
appliance, the widget comprising a plurality of pre-defined,
user selected programming blocks each graphically represented
as a processing unit with at least one of an input and an output,
wherein one of the plurality of pre-defined, user selected
programming blocks is representative of the specific target
appliance, and wherein user selected ones of the inputs and
outputs of the pre-defined, user selected programming blocks
are graphically interconnected via user interaction to define the
at least one action to be performed by the hand-held device
upon activation of the widget; and
receiving input to add the created widget to a user
interface to be provided to the handheld device.
The Examiner's Rejection
The Examiner rejected claims 1-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over
Caunter (US 2009/0249359 Al; Oct 1, 2009) and Naughton (US 6,020,881;
Feb 1, 2000).
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Appeal2014-006205
Application 12/956, 154
Appellants · Contentions
Appellants contend the Examiner erred in finding the disclosures of
Caunter and Naughton teach or suggest the recited features of claims 1 and
13 because:
1. Caunter does not describe a system and method in which
user input is used to create a widget that is to be added to a user
interface of a hand-held device to issue a command communication to
a specific target device, because Caunter is directed to inter-widget
communications. In addition, although the Examiner relies on
Naughton to teach this limitation, Naughton has no disclosure related
to creating widgets via use of a plurality of pre-defined, user selected
programming blocks, because in Naughton the target device
automatically sends its device driver to display the corresponding
widget on the hand-held device (App. Br. 5---6; Reply Br. 2-3).
2. The combination of Caunter and Naughton would not
result in the invention as claimed because there is no reason to modify
the manner in which the generic widgets of Caunter function, and
because Naughton only suggests having a new remote device transmit
graphical user interface elements to a hand-held display device.
Therefore, a prima facie case of obviousness has not been established
and therefore leads to impermissible use of hindsight reasoning
(App. Br. 7; Reply Br. 4).
ANALYSIS
In rejecting representative claim 1, the Examiner relied on Caunter as
disclosing receiving input to create a widget which is activatable via the user
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Appeal2014-006205
Application 12/956, 154
interface of the hand-held device to cause the hand-held device to perform at
least one action (Final Act. 5). The Examiner further relied on Naughton to
teach wherein the at least one action includes an action in which the hand-
held device is caused to issue a command communication for the specific
target appliance, and wherein one of the plurality of predefined user selected
programming blocks is representative of the specific target appliance (Final
Act. 6).
With respect to Appellants' contention 1, we agree with the Examiner
that Naughton teaches creating a widget that is to be added to a user
interface of a hand-held device to issue a command communication to a
specific target device (Ans. 4). Specifically, the Examiner found that
Naughton teaches a hand-held device having a widget which may issue
commands to a target thermostat device (Ans. 4, citing Naughton figs. 18a-
18d), and that a widget is dragged into a space via a touch-screen display for
interactive widgets (Ans. 4, citing Naughton Fig. 21a and col. 27, 11. 41-58,
Abstract). We also note that Naughton teaches (column 27) a remote
procedure call manager which handles the widget-activated commands
between the hand-held device and the target device. Naughton also teaches
dragging a widget into a user-defined space as (columns 17-18) that the
Examiner equated to creating a widget for that space (Final Act. 6).
Appellants admit Naughton teaches a user interface program object may be
automatically transmitted by the target device to the hand-held device (App.
Br. 6; Reply Br. 2-3), which also lends support to the concept of creating a
widget. Therefore, we conclude that Naughton teaches a creating a widget
that is to be added to a user interface of a hand-held device to issue a
command communication to a specific target device.
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Appeal2014-006205
Application 12/956, 154
With regard to Appellants' related contention that Naughton does not
teach creating widgets via use of a plurality of pre-defined, user-selected
programming blocks, we note that Appellants' arguments are not
commensurate with the scope of the claims, which require "the widget
comprising" rather than "the widget created via" a plurality of pre-defined,
user selected programming blocks. Based on our review of Naughton and
consistent with the Examiner's stated findings, we interpret the claim term
"programming blocks" using the broadest reasonable interpretation
consistent with Appellants' disclosure to mean command interface icons
which are programmed (Final Act. 6-7) because independent claim 1 does
not preclude such a reading. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed.
Cir. 1997). The Examiner found, and we agree, that a widget may comprise
a device-specific interface exemplified by object-oriented programming
thermostat controls corresponding to programmed blocks imported to the
handheld device to operate the target thermostat appliance. (Final Act. 6-7,
citing Naughton fig. 16b, figs. 18a-18d, and col. 2411. 25----67).
Regarding Appellants' contention 2, we are not persuaded that the
Examiner has erred in combining Caunter with Naughton. The Examiner
found that Caunter may be modified to incorporate widgets having a device-
specific command interface as taught by Naughton (Final Act. 6-7; Ans. 4).
Essentially Appellants' argument that one could merely modify Caunter to
have a new remote device transmit information about itself to a hand-held
display device while leaving generic widgets unchanged (see App. Br. 7) is
premised on a "physical" or "bodily" incorporation of limitations of one
reference into the other. This is not the standard. See In re Sneed, 710 F .2d
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Application 12/956, 154
1544, 1550 (Fed. Cir. 1983) ("[I]t is not necessary that the inventions of the
references be physically combinable to render obvious the invention under
review." (citations omitted)); In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981)
("The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary
reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary
reference; ... Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the
references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.").
Moreover, "[a] reference must be considered for everything it teaches
by way of technology and is not limited to the particular invention it is
describing and attempting to protect." EWP Corp. v. Reliance Universal
Inc., 755 F.2d 898, 907 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (emphasis omitted). Therefore, we
find that Naughton, which suggests having a widget with the plurality of pre-
defined programming blocks as discussed supra, is combinable with Caunter
to suggest such a widget. We also agree with the Examiner that "allowing
for more complex-related workflows" (Final Act. 7, Ans. 5) would have
reasonably permitted more complex workflows through the addition of
appliance-specific widgets.
CONCLUSION
As discussed herein, Appellants' arguments have not persuaded us
that the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Caunter and Naughton
teaches or suggests the disputed limitations of claims 1 and 13 as well as the
remaining claims which are not argued separately or based on reasoning
different from those discussed above (see App. Br. 4). Therefore, for all of
the reasons indicated above, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of
claims 1-24.
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Application 12/956, 154
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-24 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)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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