Ex Parte Kimbrell

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 26, 2013

11302718 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 26, 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.
11/302,718 12/14/2005 Jacob Warren Kimbrell 9314-145 1812
54414 7590 09/27/2013
MYERS BIGEL SIBLEY & SAJOVEC, P.A.
P.O. BOX 37428
RALEIGH, NC 27627
EXAMINER
HARLEY, JASON A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2468
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/27/2013 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 JACOB WARREN KIMBRELL
____________________

Appeal 2011-003227
Application 11/302,718
Technology Center 2400
____________________

Before: ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, JASON V. MORGAN, and
MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judges.

STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-003227
Application 11/302,718

2
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
The claims are directed to a participant-selective event
synchronization for portable electronic devices. Claim 1, reproduced below,
is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer-implemented method of synchronizing event
information for a portable electronic device, the method
comprising:
establishing an association between an identifier and the
portable electronic device;
searching participant fields of event entries in an event
database that comprises respective event entries for respective
events to identify an event entry having a participant field value
corresponding to the identifier associated with the portable
electronic device; and
electronically transmitting data of the identified event
entry to the portable electronic device.

REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Timmins U.S. 2004/0029567 A1 Feb. 12, 2004
Appeal 2011-003227
Application 11/302,718

3
THE REJECTION1
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102 (b) as being
anticipated by Timmins. Ans. 4.

ISSUE ON APPEAL
Based on Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief (App. Br. 4-6)
the issue presented on appeal is whether Timmins discloses the disputed
limitations of claim 1 including searching participant fields of event entries
in an event database.

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant’s
conclusions. 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 set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to
Appellant’s Appeal Brief. We concur with the conclusions reached by the
Examiner. We highlight the following for emphasis.
Appellant contends that Timmins’s personal information manager
(PIM) synchronization operations are based on ownership or administrator
status of contact or appointment folders and therefore do not disclose
searching participant fields of event entries. App. Br. 4. In particular,
Appellant argues that Timmins’s synchronization of PIM devices and

1 Independent claims 1 and 14 are collectively argued; dependent claims 2-
13 and 15-20 are not separately argued. In view of the foregoing, we select
claim 1 as representative of all the claims rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b),
and our analysis will only address that claim.
Appeal 2011-003227
Application 11/302,718

4
information manager databases does not disclose searching event participant
fields. App. Br. 5. The Examiner responds that
[W]ithout searching what changes have been made to
“Information management service databases”, synchronization
is not possible and as such searching is inherent as Timmins
indicates “by running a synchronization engine, the user may
‘update’(emphasis added) any directory information which has
been changed (added, edited or deleted) in a PIM data source.”,
and then “data” (emphasis added) in the folders is allowed to be
downloaded to a slave PIM to revise those in the corresponding
data sources.
Ans. 19 (emphasis omitted) (quoting Timmins [0052] and [0134]).
In the absence of rebuttal by Appellant, we find the Examiner’s
position to be reasonable and agree that searching, as broadly construed,2 is
included in synchronization.3 Furthermore, we note that Appellant’s
Specification fails to provide a specific definition for or attach any special
meaning to searching. Therefore, “searching” is to be accorded its customary
and ordinary meaning4 to include looking for the location of a file or to seek

2 “[T]he PTO must apply the broadest reasonable meaning to the claim
language, taking into account any definitions presented in the specification.”
In re American Academy of Science Tech Center, 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed.
Cir. 2004) (quoting In re Bass, 314 F.3d 575, 577 (Fed. Cir. 2002)) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
3 Where, as here, the Examiner has established by presenting sufficient
evidence and/or technical reasoning, a sound basis for the belief that a
structure disclosed in the prior art must inherently possesses a characteristic,
the burden shifts to Appellant to overcome, with argument or evidence, why
that is not necessarily the case. See In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473, 1478
(Fed. Cir. 1997) (citing In re Spada, 911 F.2d 705, 708 (Fed. Cir. 1990)).
4 “[T]he words of a claim ‘are generally given their ordinary and customary
meaning.’” Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2005)
(en banc) (citations omitted). The “ordinary and customary meaning of a
claim term is the meaning that the term would have to a person of ordinary
Appeal 2011-003227
Application 11/302,718

5
specific data within a file.5 Timmins describes that, as part of the
synchronization process, “changes . . . in the master device are incorporated
into the corresponding data sources in the slave device.” Timmins [0012].
Therefore, Timmins’s synchronization necessarily seeks or “searches” for
changes in PIM data sources (e.g., appointments and contact folders) of
particular users. Because “a participant field value [may correspond] to the
identifier associated with the portable electronic device” (Spec. [0004]),
searching PIM data of particular users broadly discloses the disputed claim
limitation of searching participant fields of event entries in an event
database. Therefore, in the absence of sufficient evidence or argument to
persuade us of Examiner error we sustain the rejection of independent claim
1 and, for the same reasons, the rejection of independent claim 14 together
with the rejections of dependent claims 2-13 and 15-20 not separately
argued.

CONCLUSION
We find that Timmins discloses the disputed limitations of claim 1
including searching participant fields of event entries in an event database
and that, therefore, the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-20 under
35 U.S.C. § 102 (b).

skill in the art in question at the time of the invention, i.e., as of the effective
filing date of the patent application.” Id. at 1313.
5 See definition of search: 1. to look for the location of a file; 2. to seek
specific data within a file of data structure. Microsoft Computer Dictionary,
Fifth Edition, Microsoft Press (2002), p. 469.
Appeal 2011-003227
Application 11/302,718

6
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-20 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

msc