Ex Parte Shuf et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 16, 2015

12180678 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 16, 2015)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/180,678 07/28/2008 Yefim Shuf
30678 7590 12/17/2015
NOV AK DRUCE CONNOLLY BOVE+ QUIGG LLP
(DC OFFICE)
1875 EYE STREET, N.W.
SUITE 1100
WASHINGTON, DC 20006
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.
20140-00403-USl 1546
EXAMINER
KEATON, SHERROD L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2142
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
12/17/2015 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 YEFIM SHUF, ALEX ZLATSIN, DIMITRI KANEVSKY, and
GENADY GRABARNIK
Appeal2013-009425
Application 12/180,678
Technology Center 2100
Before DANIEL N. FISHMAN, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and
KAMRAN JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judges.
JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's rejections of claims 1-5, 7-13, and 15-19, which constitute all
the claims pending in this application. 2 We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the
real party in interest. App. Br. 2.
2 Claims 6 and 14 are cancelled.
Appeal2013-009425
Application 12/180,678
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The present patent application relates to reducing the bandwidth
requirements associated with transmitting a presentation across a network.
Spec. if 1.
Claim 1 is illustrative (emphasis added):
1. A method, comprising:
receiving information associated with a presentation at a
remote site;
connecting to an on-line conference and accessing the
presentation;
during the presentation, receiving control commands at
the remote site;
converting the control commands into navigation
commands for controlling screen displays of the presentation at
the remote site;
executing the navigation commands in a presentation
software tool at the remote site to view information associated
with the presentation during the on-line conference;
disabling, during the presentation, the executing, wherein
the presentation can be navigated at the remote site
independently of the presentation during the on-line conference;
buffering, during the disabling, incoming control
commands received at the remote site; and
restoring the presentation of the remote site to
synchronization with the presentation during the on-line
conference, the restoring comprising executing the buffered
control commands in the presentation software tool.
The Rejections
Claims 1-5, 9-13, 17, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Krzyzanowski (US 7,761,505 B2; July 20, 2010),
2
Appeal2013-009425
Application 12/180,678
Vernon (US 7,421,069 B2; Sept. 2, 2008), Caspi (US 7,899,863 B2; Mar. 1,
2011), and Lauder (US 6,988,216 B2; Jan. 17, 2006).
Claims 7 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Krzyzanowski, Vernon, Caspi, Lauder, and Bauman (US
5,960,455; Sept. 28, 1999).
Claims 8 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Krzyzanowski, Vernon, Caspi, Lauder, and Kripalani (US
2009/0254839 Al; Oct. 8, 2009).
Claim 18 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Krzyzanowski, Vernon, Caspi, Lauder, and McNeill (US 6,421,706 Bl;
July 16, 2002).
ANALYSIS
At issue are the Examiner's findings regarding the buffering,
disabiing, and restoring iimitations recited in Ciaim 1. App. Br. 17.
Independent claims 9, 1 7, and 19 recite similar limitations. Id. at 22.
The Examiner finds the combination of Krzyzanowski, Vernon, Caspi
and Lauder teaches or suggests the limitations of claim 1. Final Act. 2.
Specifically, the Examiner finds, Krzyzanowski teaches or suggests the
majority of the limitations of claim 1, but that "Krzyzanowski does not
explicitly disclose" the buffering, disabling, and restoring limitations. Id. at
2--4. For the disabling limitation, the Examiner finds "Vernon is explicitly
provided to disclose functionality that allows a user to navigate
independently of the conferencing and later resynch with the presenter
(Column 14, Lines 14-23)." Id. at 3 (emphasis omitted). For the buffering
limitation, the Examiner finds "Lauder discloses a functionality for buffering
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Appeal2013-009425
Application 12/180,678
commands and making a determination on when to process them (Column 6,
Lines 6-10)." Id. For the restoring limitation, the Examiner finds "Caspi is
provided because it discloses the functionality of synchronizing the data
found locally with information currently being provided by the presenter
based on a navigational/synchronization commands (Column 2, Lines 6-45
and Column 4, Lines 39-47)." Id.
Appellants contend the Examiner errs in combining the applied
references because, (i) "If Krzyzanowski were allowed to desynchronize per
Vernon, there would be no frame of reference to get back to the current
slide" (App. Br. 19; Reply Br. 2); (ii) "The Caspi marker is not used in Caspi
for resynchronization purposes, and does not provide any teaching or
suggestion for the same" (App. Br. 20; Reply Br. 4); and (iii) "There is no
logical combination between Lauder and any of the other three references"
(App. Br. 21; Reply Br. 5).
We have considered the Examiner's rejections in iight of Appeiiants'
arguments in the Appeal Brief and the Reply Brief that the Examiner has
erred, as well as the Examiner's Answer thereto. We are not persuaded by
Appellants' arguments. Rather, we agree with and adopt as our own the
Examiner's findings and reasons. We further emphasize the following.
Appellants' arguments fail to persuade us of Examiner error. First,
Appellants misapprehend the cited teachings Krzyzanowski, arguing
"Krzyzanowski has no idea what the most current slide is, doesn't download
the slide, and the most current slide is never identified." App. Br. 19; Reply
Br. 2. (emphasis omitted). Krzyzanowski teaches multimedia presentation
software interface 514 provides the remote system with a copy of the
multimedia presentation and further recites "a command to display the next
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Appeal2013-009425
Application 12/180,678
slide" thereby teaching or suggesting an ability to move to the current slide.
Krzyzanowski, 9:8-38. Appellants' further argument that Krzyzanowski
fails to "teach that the next slide command includes identification
information about the next slide" is unavailing. Reply Br. 4. The Examiner
finds, and we agree, Vernon teaches or suggests allowing the user to
"navigate independently of the conferencing and later resynch with the
presenter." Final Act. 3 (citing Vernon, 14:14--23). Where, as here, a
rejection is based on a combination of references, one cannot show non-
obviousness by attacking references individually. In re Keller, 642 F.2d
413, 426 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed.
Cir. 1986).
Second, we are similarly unpersuaded by Appellants' argument
regarding Caspi because it is not responsive to the Examiner's findings.
Caspi teaches using synchronization commands to move the local copies of a
presentation further to the next siide. Caspi, 2:6-45. Caspi further teaches
"Exemplary synchronization commands include messages indicating the
current slide number, or file name of data being presented, page numbers,
mouse coordinates, screen coordinates, and the like. Caspi, 4:39--47. Thus,
the Examiner finds, and we agree,
The commands of Capsi [sic] can be incorporated with the
commands of Krzyanowski [sic] to extend the functionality by
providing further detailed data within the command sets that are
provided. Krzyanowski [sic] clearly suggests some type of
synchronization functionality (see remarks above) and Capsi
[sic] provides detailed disclosure of synchronization
commands. The intent behind the combination of Capsi [sic]
was not to break up the desynchronization and
resynchronization of Vernon (office action references both
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Appeal2013-009425
Application 12/180,678
functionalities on page 3) but to provide explicit commands not
yet disclosed.
Ans. 6. We further disagree with Appellants' that the combination of
Krzyzanowski, Vernon, and Caspi "restores the current state of the
presentation directly via an ID." Reply Br. 6. We agree with the Examiner
that the combination of Krzyzanowski, Vernon, and Caspi allows the user to
desynchronize and synchronize locally, in a command based system. Final.
Act. 3. We further agree with the Examiner that such combination would
not be limited by one of ordinary skill in the art to use only commands
relying on particular IDs, but rather would include more basic commands
such as Krzyzanowski's "move to next slide." Ans. 5 (stating "Whether the
resynchronization is the form of presentation data or commands (i.e. jump to
slide xx) does not eliminate the overall functionality."). We note the skilled
artisan is "a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton." KSR Int 'l Co.
rn 1 rt T l""'l""'f\ TT n "'"'"{") Al"\1 /l"\f\f\,..," v. 1etejtex, 1nc., :J:JU U.;:'). _j'J?:>, <:+Ll ~LUUJJ.
Third, we are not persuaded by Appellants' argument that
"Krzyzanowski, Vernon and Caspi address problems of broadcasting
presentations to remote locations - a field to which Lauder does not
address." App. Br. 21. Lauder is directed to the field of "internet-related
networks (e.g., the World Wide Web) for multi-media conferencing
presentations .... " Lauder, i-f 1:19-20. Moreover, Appellants' fail to
establish that one of ordinary skill in the art would not combine Lauder with
the remaining references in the manner applied by the Examiner. The
Examiner correctly finds:
It must first be stated that in any form of computing it is
obvious that there is to some extent buffering taking place.
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Application 12/180,678
Lauder is provided because it buffers data and makes a
determination on when to process the data (Column 6, Lines 6-
10). The utility is well known in the computing art, and Lauder
explicitly states a service that could be easily incorporated in
any computing system.
Ans. 6. On the record before us, Appellants' contentions do not identify
persuasive evidence that the applied combination was "uniquely challenging
or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art." Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v.
Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007). Accordingly, we
find the preponderance of the evidence supports the Examiner's proposed
combination because the resulting buffering, disabling, and restoring system
is not "more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their
established functions." KSR, 550 U.S. at 417 (2007).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection
of independent claims 1, 9, 17, and 19. Appellants do not argue separately
dependent claims 2-5, 7, 8, 10-13, 15, 16, and 18. App. Br. 22.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of
these dependent claims for the same reasons discussed above.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-5, 7-13, and 15-19.
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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