Ex Parte Hyttinen

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 8, 2013

10775545 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 8, 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.
10/775,545 02/10/2004 Tarmo Hyttinen 915-013.004 6700
10945 7590 07/08/2013
NOKIA CORPORATION
c/o Ware, Fressola, Maguire & Barber LLP
Building Five, Bradford Green
755 Main Street, PO Box 224
Monroe, CT 06468
EXAMINER
WU, QING YUAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2199
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/08/2013 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 TARMO HYTTINEN
____________________

Appeal 2011-003180
Application 10/775,545
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, and
PATRICK M. BOUCHER, Administrative Patent Judges.

BOUCHER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-003180
Application 10/775,545
2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1–21. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

Illustrative Claim
The claimed subject matter relates to handling of high-priority events
with a digital calendar application.
Claim 13 is illustrative and is reproduced below:
13. A method, comprising:
receiving a high priority event to be added to a calendar
application,
searching possible overlapping events in said calendar
application as a response to receiving said high priority event,
presenting said found one or more overlapping events,
receiving instructions for silencing alarms of said found
one or more overlapping events by one command and,
silencing the alarms of said found one or more
overlapping events.

References
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Dean
Parker
US 6,167,379
US 7,458,080 B2
Dec. 26, 2000
Nov. 25, 2008
Nishizawa US 2002/0004734 A1 Jan. 10, 2002
Appeal 2011-003180
Application 10/775,545
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Rejections
The Examiner rejected claims 1–21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Nishizawa, Dean, and Parker (Ans. 3–10).

Appellant’s Contentions1
1. Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 13
under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) because “[t]he cited references, alone or in
combination, at least fail to disclose or suggest receiving instructions for
silencing alarms of the found one or more overlapping events by one
command, and silencing the alarms of the one or more overlapping events,
as recited in claim 13” (Br. 4).
2. Appellant also contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim
13 under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) because “the teachings of Parker are
incompatible with the teachings of Dean . . . ” (Ans. 4) and therefore “[t]here
is no motivation to combine the teachings of Parker and Dean, because the
teachings of the references would be modified to render the references
unsuitable for their intended purposes” (Ans. 5).

ANALYSIS
We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the
Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons

1 We treat claim 13 as representative of all claims. 37 C.F.R. §
41.37(c)(1)(vii). Although the other claims are presented under separate
headings, Appellant merely references the arguments made for claim 13
without presenting any additional arguments to establish separate
patentability. Except for our ultimate decision, claims 1–12 and 14–21 are
not discussed further herein.
Appeal 2011-003180
Application 10/775,545
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set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to the
Appeal Brief. We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner.

First Contention
Appellant asserts that the notification profiles disclosed by Parker “are
not specific to found one or more overlapping events” (Br. 4). This
argument is not commensurate with the scope of the claim limitations.
Rather, we concur with the Examiner’s analysis (Ans. 10–11) that Parker’s
“meeting profile” (see Parker, col. 6, ll. 31–59) acts to silence alarms of
overlapping events, as specifically illustrated by the example provided by
the Examiner (Ans. 11). We accordingly conclude that the combination of
references teaches or suggests “receiving instructions for silencing alarms of
said found one or more overlapping events by one command” and “silencing
the alarms of said found one or more overlapping events.” The Examiner
did not err in so finding.

Second Contention
Appellant asserts that “[t]he teachings of Parker and Dean are in
conflict, because when the profile in Parker is selected either manually or
automatically, there is no room for presenting of overlapping events.” (Br.
5). We disagree. The combination of Nishizawa, Dean, and Parker as
articulated by the Examiner allows a user to be presented with found
overlapping events as taught by Dean, and then to manually select the
“meeting” profile taught by Parker to silence alarms of the overlapping
events, such as during a high-priority meeting. The presentation of
overlapping events taught by Dean and the notification profile taught by
Parker are not incompatible. We therefore conclude that the modification
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Application 10/775,545
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proposed by the Examiner would not render the references unsuitable for
their intended purposes. The Examiner did not err in making the
combination.

CONCLUSION
On the record before us, we conclude that the Examiner has not erred
in rejecting claims 1–21 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–21 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

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