Ex Parte Hofstaedter et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 26, 2017

13548950 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 26, 2017)

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.
13/548,950 07/13/2012 Christian E. HOFSTAEDTER P41395 4077
7055 7590 07/28/2017
GREENBLUM & BERNSTEIN, P.L.C.
1950 ROLAND CLARKE PLACE
RESTON, VA 20191
EXAMINER
ELMORE, GREGORY M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2437
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/28/2017 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):
gbpatent@gbpatent.com
greenblum.bernsteinplc@gmail.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte CHRISTIAN E. HOFSTAEDTER, REYES CANALES III,
EDWARD GOZIKER, JAMES S. SIMPKINS, FERNANDO GARCIA-
DUARTE, JULIA RENOUARD, JOSEPH T. SAVARESE, MARK V.
KIMMERLY, ZHENWU WANG, JOHN DANGOV, PAUL L. HOOVER,
and MICHAEL L. SNYDER
Appeal 2017-002047
Application 13/548,9501
Technology Center 2400
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, KRISTEN L. DROESCH, and
NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1—16, which are all claims pending. We have
jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify NetMotion Wireless, Inc. as the real party in interest.
(App. Br. 2.)
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Application 13/548,950
THE INVENTION
Appellants’ disclosed and claimed invention is directed to an artificial
intelligence engine that receives data related to a mobile communication
environment, including a triggering device that triggers actions in accord
with rules specifying conditions and predicates. (Abstract.)
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal:
1. An artificial intelligence engine, located in at least one of
a network server and a mobile device, that receives data related
to at least one of: at least one available network of a mobile
communication environment and system data of a mobile device
in the mobile communication environment, the artificial
intelligence engine comprising:
a rules engine that receives a currently configured set of
rules including at least one rule, the at least one rule comprising
at least one condition and at least one action;
the at least one condition comprises at least one
predicate, which qualifies the at least one condition, and at least
one condition state, and the rules engine is structured to
evaluate the at least one condition and the at least one predicate;
and
a hardware processor structured and arranged to receive
the data related to the at least one of the at least one available
networks of a mobile communication environment and the
system data from the mobile device in the mobile
communication environment, to process on behalf of the rules
engine the data against the at least condition and at least one
predicate and to forward the processed data to the rules engine
for the evaluation of the at least one rule;
wherein the at least one action is triggered when one of:
both the at least one condition and the at least one
predicate evaluate to true by the rules engine; or
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Application 13/548,950
the at least one action is stateful and both the at
least one condition and the at least one predicate are
evaluated by the rules engine to transition from true to
false or from false to true.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 8, 9, and 15 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as being anticipated by Roman et al. (US 2009/0049518 Al, pub.
Feb. 19, 2009). (Final Act. 6-9.)
The Examiner rejected claims 2—7 and 10-14 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Roman and Griff et al. (US 8,379,532
B2, issued Feb. 19, 2013). (Final Act. 9—14.)
The Examiner rejected claim 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Roman and Mikurak (US 8,032,409 Bl, issued Oct. 4,
2011). (Final Act. 1^U17.)
ISSUES ON APPEAL
Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
issues:2
Issue One: Whether the Examiner errs in finding Roman discloses the
subject matter of claims 1, 8, 9, and 15. (App. Br. 11—23.)
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Jan. 19, 2016, “App. Br.”); the
corrected Appeal Brief (filed May 19, 2016, “Corr. App. Br.”); the Reply
Brief (filed Nov. 22, 2016); the Final Office Action (mailed July 16, 2015,
“Final Act.”); and the Examiner’s Answer (mailed Sept. 22, 2016, “Ans.”)
for the respective details.
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Issue Two: Whether the Examiner errs in finding the combination of
Roman and Griff teaches or suggests the subject matter of claims 2—7 and
10-14. (App. Br. 24—32.)
Issue Three: Whether the Examiner errs in finding the combination of
Roman and Mikurak teaches or suggests the subject matter of claim 16.
(App. Br. 33—38.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments the Examiner erred. We disagree with Appellants’ arguments,
and we adopt as our own (1) the pertinent findings and reasons set forth by
the Examiner in the Action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 6—17)
and (2) the corresponding findings and reasons set forth in the Examiner’s
Answer in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief (Ans. 3—17). We concur
with the applicable conclusions reached by the Examiner, and emphasize the
following.
Issues One and Three
Appellants argue the Examiner errs in finding Roman discloses
conditions comprising a predicate, as required by independent claims 1 and
9, and also errs in finding the combination of Roman and Griff teaches or
suggests the commensurate limitation of independent claim 16. (App. Br.
11—22, 33—38.) For dependent claims 8 and 15, Appellants make essentially
the same argument. (App. Br. 22—23.) In rejecting each of these claims, the
Examiner relies for this limitation on the disclosure in Roman of rules that
trigger actions in response to evaluating condition groups made up of
conditions in the form of Boolean expressions — i.e., “an expression that is
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either true (‘ 1 ’) or false (null or ‘0’).” (Final Act. 7; Ans. 4—6; Roman ||
36-39.)
Appellants argue that, although Roman may disclose conditions, it
does not disclose conditions comprised of predicates that are separate from
conditions — on the contrary, argue Appellants, Roman treats “predicate” as
synonymous with “condition.” (App. Br. 16—17; see Roman 138: “When a
trigger 202 notifies an action rule set 204, the action rule evaluates its
predicate (conditions) 206” (emphasis added).)
We are not persuaded by this argument. The Specification provides
examples of predicates and conditions in Figures 11 and 12 — one example
of a predicate is “For the following Users,” and one example of a condition
is “If a device has not communicated with the server in the past X minutes.”
(Roman Figs. 11, 12.) Thus, pursuant to these examples, a rule can be
defined as triggering an action when, for one of the users specified in the
predicate, a device of that user does not communicate with the server for the
specified time lapse. Figures 10A and 10B of Roman give another example:
for the carrier Verizon, if the usage exceeds a specified limit, send an email.
(Roman Figs. 10A, 10B, || 138—140.) From this disclosure in the
Specification, the broadest reasonable interpretation of “predicate” is that it
is an additional Boolean condition of the rule. I.e., the predicate “For the
following users: A, B, C” is simply the condition “If User=A OR User=B
OR User=C.”
Thus, the “predicate” of the claims is a first condition, as that word is
commonly understood, and the “condition” of the claims is a second
condition. The Examiner correctly finds that the “condition groups” of
Roman, made up of multiple conditions, discloses the claimed “at least one
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condition comprises at least one predicate, which qualifies the at least one
condition.” (Final Act. 7; Roman 138: “Several different conditions 208
may be organized into one or more condition groups 206.”) The fact that
Roman uses the term “condition” to refer both to what the claims call
“predicate,” as well as what the claims call “condition,” is not persuasive of
error — “[anticipation] is not an ‘ipsissimis verbis’ test.” In re Bond, 910
F.2d 831,832 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
Issue Two
In rejecting dependent claims 2—7 and 10-14 over Roman and Griff,
the Examiner relies on specific disclosures in Griff for the additional
limitations added by those claims, in combination with the disclosures of
Roman with respect to the underlying limitation of independent claims 1 and
9. (Final Act. 10—14; Ans. 10—14.) As to each of these rejections,
Appellants first repeat the arguments regarding “predicate,” which
arguments are unpersuasive for the reasons discussed above. (App. Br. 24—
29.)
In addition, for each claim Appellants argue “GRIFF fails to arguably
provide any teaching to suggest modifying the express disclosure of
ROMAN [to arrive at the limitation],” or “the Examiner has not identified
any discernible teaching found in the applied art of ROMAN or GRIFF that
would have suggested [the limitation] to those ordinarily skilled in the art,”
or the like. (App. Br. 30—32.) These conclusory arguments are not
persuasive. Attorney arguments and conclusory statements that are
unsupported by factual evidence are entitled to little probative value. In re
Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997); see also In re De Blauwe,
736 F.2d 699, 705 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
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CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, we sustain anticipation rejections of
claims 1, 8, 9, and 15 over Roman, the obviousness rejections of claims 2—7
and 10—14 over Roman and Griff, and the obviousness rejection of claim 16
over Roman and Mikurak.
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—16 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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