Ex Parte Sameh

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Oct 29, 2009

10115393 (B.P.A.I. Oct. 29, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
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Ex parte JOSEPH SAMEH
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Appeal 2009-005429
Application 10/115,393
Technology Center 3600
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Decided: October 30, 2009
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Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI and
BIBHU R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges.

JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. §§ 6(b) and 134(a) from the final
rejection of claims 1-32, 34-36. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)
(2002). A hearing was held on October 20, 2009.
Representative claim 1 reads as follows:

1. A method of routing a message from a requestor to a physician through a
web site, such method comprising the steps of:
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Application 10/115,393

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the physician providing a plurality of message destinations;
the physician providing a respective criteria for routing messages to
each of the plurality of message destinations;
the requestor accessing the web site and downloading a form;
the requestor at least partially completing the form and returning the
form to the web site as a message to the physician;
determining an information content of the message received from the
requestor;
selecting a message destination of the plurality of destinations with
the respective routing criteria that matches the determined message content;
and
routing the message to the selected message destination based upon
the determined information content and routing criteria provided by the
physician.

The references set forth below are relied upon as evidence of
obviousness:
Wright 6,004,276 Dec. 21, 1999
Trusheim 5,385,589 B1 May 7, 2002
Loeb 2002/0178030 A1 Nov. 28, 2002
Ilsen 6,757,898 B1 Jun. 29, 2004

The Examiner rejected independent claims 1, 16 and 31 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over Loeb in view of Wright.
Each of independent claims 1, 16 and 31 requires:

routing the message to the selected message destination based upon the
determined information content and routing criteria provided by the
physician.

The Examiner found that Loeb discloses this feature in that

(g) routing the message based upon the determined information
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content and routing criteria provided by the physician (Loeb:
[0067], note "...the appointment request may be electronically
forwarded {e.g. email, facsimile} to the service provider..."; see
also Table II, note the provision of an email address, which the
Examiner considers to be a form of routing criteria provided by
the selected physician).
(Ans. 5).

However Loeb at ¶¶[0066-0067] discloses

(a) “… the Internet-enabled user is presented with a display listing
qualified providers (box 64)…” [¶0066] and

(b) users … [can] select a specific service provider from the
listing of qualified providers, and request from that specific
provider, an appointment. Appointment times are preferably
set on-line by using a provider appointment schedule
maintained by system 10. Alternatively, the appointment
request may be electronically forwarded (e.g. e-mail, facsimile)
to the service provider with user contact information thereby
allowing a representative of the provider to directly contact the
interested user. Alternatively, the selected provider's telephone
number can be displayed. [¶0067]

There is no disclosure in Loeb of routing a message by determining
information content and routing criteria provided by the physician. Rather,
in Loeb, the user simply selects a service provider from a list of providers,
and it is the user him or herself who makes the appointment. Moreover,
there is no disclosure of routing a message to any selected message
destination because in Loeb there is no disclosure of anything more than a
given service provider’s email or facsimile. Nothing in Loeb discloses
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selecting based on criteria between the email or facsimile information
provided to the user, and thus we do not find any teaching, or an inference of
obviousness for the claim limitation of routing the message to the selected
message destination based upon the determined information content and
routing criteria provided by the physician.
The Wright reference is relied on for its teaching of “… a system of
distributing medical reports (ECGs) to a plurality of "destinations" (i.e. users
of the reports, including physicians) specified by routing criteria (Wright:
col. 55, Ins. 16-37).” (Ans. 6). However this teaching does not remedy the
shortcomings in Loeb as discussed above.
For the above reasons we will not sustain the rejection of claim
independent claims 1, 16 and 31. Since claims 2, 5, 17, 19, 20, 31, 34, 35,
and 36 depend from one of claims 1, 16 and 31, and are similarly rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Loeb in view of Wright, we do not
sustain the rejection of these claims either.
As the rejections of the remaining claims fail to cure the deficiency of
the rejection of claims 1, 16 and 31, we will also not sustain the rejection of
these claims. We therefore do not sustain the rejections of claims 1-32, 34-
36.
REVERSED

JRG

Appeal 2009-005429
Application 10/115,393

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