Ex Parte Silin

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 24, 2017

14027136 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 24, 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.
BAUE:0002 1184
EXAMINER
KIM, MINJUNG
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2646
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
14/027,136 09/13/2013
37106 7590 10/25/2017
FLETCHER YODER P.C.
P.O. Box 692289
HOUSTON, TX 77269-2289
Walter Paul Silin
10/25/2017 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 WALTER PAUL SILIN
Appeal 2017-005381
Application 14/027,136
Technology Center 2600
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, ALLEN R. MacDONALD, and
JOHN P. PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judges.
MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-005381
Application 14/027,136
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Exemplary Claim
Exemplary claim 1 under appeal reads as follows:
1. A non-transitory computer readable medium
storing executable instructions which, when executed by
a processor, cause the processor to:
authenticate a user via a login process configured
to request user information;
retrieve a connectivity data from a licensing
server;
connect with at least one external system different
from the licensing server based on the connectivity data;
retrieve an application programming interface
(API) from the at least one external system;
execute the API to customize a graphical user
interface (GUI), wherein the API is executed entirely by
a processor of the mobile device; and
display the GUI on a display of a mobile device,
wherein the API is retrieved and executed after every
execution of the login process.
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Rejections on Appeal
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1—8, 11—14, 16—18, and 20 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Tuchman
(US 2012/0265695 Al; published Oct. 18, 2012).* 1
2. The Examiner rejected claims 10, 15, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being unpatentable over the combination of Tuchman and Clark
(US 2009/0089689 Al; published Apr. 2, 2009).
3. The Examiner rejected claim 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the combination of Tuchman and Aiuto
(US 8,893,077 Bl; issued Nov. 18, 2014).
Appellant’s Contention
1. Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) because:
Tuchman does not teach or suggest retrieving API and then
executing the API entirely in the processor (e.g., mobile device
processor) to customize a GUI, such that the retrieval and
execution of an API occurs after every execution of the login
process.
First, Tuchman does not teach or suggest retrieving API that is
executable by a processor, and then executing the API entirely
in the processor (e.g., mobile device processor) to customize a
GUI. As a person of ordinary skill in the art can appreciate, the
claims recite an Application Programming Interface (API). This
is clearly understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art to
include, for example, computer instructions that have functions,
subroutines, system calls, GUI programming, and so on, to be
1 The patentability of claims 2—20 is not separately argued from that of claim
1. See App. Br. 6—10. Thus, except for our ultimate decision, claims 2—20
are not discussed further herein.
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Application 14/027,136
executed by a processor. The Examiner points out to FIG. 4, step
403 of Tuchman as teaching a retrieval of an API. See Final
Office Action, pg. 3. However, the FIG. and corresponding
description of step 403 clearly show that text is retrieved to be
displayed in a page. Indeed, it is the Appellant’s position that no
API is being retrieved by Tuchman. Instead, it appears that
what is being retrieved is information (e.g., text names of
products) related to certain registered products, and that
Tuchman’s GUI simply updates the GUI with the product related
information, e.g., by displaying “personalized page having a list
of registered products.” Indeed, it appears that the GUI is not so
much modified by executing an API (e.g., by changing a GUI
control element), but rather that the GUI is simply redisplaying
a page with an updated list of products and related information.
That is, the API is not executed to customize or otherwise
change the GUI, but rather, the Tuchman GUI is simply
executing the exact same code again to redisplay new product
info.
Second, Tuchman does not teach or suggest the retrieval and
execution of an API occurs after every execution of the login
process. Indeed, the Examiner does not appear to show where
in Tuchman such a teaching or suggestion is found, and
Applicants respectfully [note] that Tuchman is silent as to
retrieving an API and executing such API on every login.
App. Br. 7—8 (Appellant’s emphasis and citation omitted, panel’s emphasis
added).
Issue on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 1 as being anticipated?
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PRINCIPLES OF LAW
A claim under examination is given its broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the underlying specification. See In re Am.
Acad. ofSci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). In the
absence of an express definition of a claim term in the specification or a
clear disclaimer of scope, the claim term is interpreted as broadly as the
ordinary usage of the term by one of ordinary skill in the art would permit.
See In re ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., 496 F.3d 1374, 1379 (Fed. Cir.
2007); see also In re Morris, 111 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
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. Except where indicated, we adopt as our own: (1) the findings
and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which the appeal is
taken (Final Act. 2—14); and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the
Examiner’s Answer (Ans. 2—15) in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief.
We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We add the
following.
As to Appellant’s above contention 1, we are not persuaded the
Examiner erred. We agree with the Examiner that Tuchman teaches
retrieving an application programming interface (“API”) from at least one
external system. See Final Act. 5 (citing Tuchman 192). Paragraph 90 of
Tuchman discloses downloading a one-touch application and installing the
one-touch application on a mobile device. See Tuchman 190. Paragraph 88
of Tuchman further discloses the one-touch application includes an API that
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Application 14/027,136
communicatively couples the one-touch application to a variety of
communication client applications. See Tuchman 1 88. Thus, the Examiner
correctly found that Tuchman’s one-touch application teaches the claimed
“API.” See Ans. 13—14 (citing Tuchman 1 90).
We further agree with the Examiner that Tuchman teaches executing
an API to customize a graphical user interface (“GUI”), wherein the API is
executed entirely by a processor of a mobile device. See Final Act. 6 (citing
Tuchman H 92, 220). Paragraph 92 of Tuchman discloses the one-touch
application displays a GUI that includes a list of registered products
retrieved from an external system on a display of the mobile device. See
Tuchman 192. Thus, the Examiner correctly found that the one-touch
application is executed to retrieve information displayed within the graphical
user interface, where the display of the graphical user interface is
customized to include the retrieved information. See Ans. 14. The
Examiner also correctly found that the one-touch application is installed on
the mobile device, and thus, the one-touch application is executed entirely
by a processor of the mobile device. See id.
We also agree with the Examiner that Tuchman teaches displaying the
GUI on a display of a mobile device. See Final Act. 6 (citing Tuchman
1192, 220). As described above, paragraph 92 of Tuchman discloses the
one-touch application displays a GUI on a display of the mobile device. See
Tuchman 192.
We further agree with the Examiner that Tuchman teaches the API is
retrieved and executed after every execution of a login process. See Final
Act. 6 (citing Tuchman 1 90). Paragraphs 90 and 91 of Tuchman disclose a
login process where a user of the mobile device provides user credentials for
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login purposes, where the one-touch application provides a device identifier
(“ID”) so that the user does not need to provide the user credentials for
subsequent logins, and where the one-touch application is subsequently
executed on the mobile device after the login process. See Tuchman H 91,
92. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, claim 1 only requires a
single login process, where the API is retrieved and executed after the
execution of the login process, as the claim does not expressly recite a
requirement for multiple executions of the login process.2 Thus, the
Examiner also correctly found that Tuchman teaches this limitation as well.
See Ans. 15.
Thus, we conclude the Examiner did not err in finding that Tuchman
teaches all the limitations of claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection
of claim 1 under35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2).
CONCLUSIONS
(1) The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 1—8, 11—14, 16—
18, and 20 as being anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2).
(2) The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 9, 10, 15, and 19
as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
(3) Claims 1—20 are not patentable.
2 Although not necessary to sustain the Examiner’s rejection, we note that
even if claim 1 required multiple executions of a login process, the claimed
feature of the API being retrieved and executed after every execution of the
login process would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in
light of Tuchman’s disclosure of a login process and a subsequent execution
of a one-touch application on a mobile device after the login process. See
Tuchman || 91, 92.
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DECISION3
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—8, 11—14, 16—18, and
20 as being anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2).
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 9, 10, 15, and 19 as
being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
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
3 In addition to Appellant’s arguments for patentability of claims 1—20,
Appellant also requested consideration of amendments to claims 1,11, and
17 filed on January 13, 2016. See App. Br. 2. However, in an Advisory
Action mailed on January 28, 2016, the Examiner refused entry of the claim
amendments. See id. Thus, the claim amendments are not before us, and we
do not consider the aforementioned claim elements.
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