Ex Parte Turcanu et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 18, 2012

10732539 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 18, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte CALIN TURCANU and JAAKKO SAIJONMAA
____________________

Appeal 2010-003408
Application 10/732,539
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, THU A. DANG, and GREGORY J.
GONSALVES, Administrative Patent Judges.

DANG, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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I. STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-11 and
17-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). Claims 12-16 have been canceled. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

A. INVENTION
According to Appellants, the invention relates to group
communication in communications systems providing group service (Spec.
1, ¶ [0001]).

B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 1 is exemplary and reproduced below:

1. A method, comprising:

subscribing to information on other group members of a
group;

summarizing information on the group at least based on
current information on at least one other group member whose
information was subscribed to, wherein the outcome is
summarized group member information including at least one
of a number of group members, a number of participating group
members, numbers of participating and non-participating
group members, an indication of participating and
non-participating group members and an number of available
persons via a group; and

delivering the summarized group member information to
the a user, wherein the user is a group member of the group.
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C. REJECTIONS
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Grube US 2003/0100326 Al May 29, 2003
Maggenti US 6,477,150 B1 Nov. 05, 2002

Claims 1-8 and 17-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
being anticipated by Grube.
Claims 9-11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Grube and Maggenti.

II. ISSUE
Has the Examiner erred in finding that Grube teaches “subscribing to
information” and “summarizing information on the group at least based on
current information on at least one other group member whose information
was subscribed to, wherein the outcome is summarized group member
information including at least one of a number of group members” (claim 1,
emphasis added)?

III. FINDINGS OF FACT
The following Finding of Fact (FF) is shown by a preponderance of
the evidence.
Grube
Grube discloses sharing location and route information between
communication units, wherein Grube’s Figure 2 is reproduced below:
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Grube’s Figure 2 discloses a map display provided to a user of a
communication unit, which shows three public safety vehicles approaching
an incident location, as well as the planned routes and estimated time of
arrival of the vehicles, wherein all information is updated in real-time as the
vehicles change their location (p. 4, ¶ [0030]).
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IV. ANALYSIS
Claims 1-8, and 17-24
Appellants contend that Grube discloses “prospective subscribers
subscribing to, or registering for, an event” whereas “[s]ubscribing to an
event and subscribing to information are two different things (App. Br. 8,
emphasis omitted). Appellants further contend that, though Grube discloses
“information may be updated in real-time and is associated with an event,”
the “information is never summarized” (App. Br. 9). Appellants then assert
that, although “the Examiner refers to ‘three cars on the map’ as reading on
‘summarized group member information including at least one of a number
of group members,’ … the illustration of any number of cars is distinctly
different from providing a number of participating group members” since
it forces a user “to calculate, by counting, how many cars are displayed in
order to determine a number of group members” (App. Br. 10).
The Examiner responds that, although “[t]he Examiner agrees that
Grube et al disclose the subscribers subscribing to an event, … along with
this particular event, the subscriber is also subscribing to a group location
information” wherein the Examiner “relies on Grube et al teaching
subscribers subscribing to a group location information” (Ans. 8-9). The
Examiner then finds that “[G]rube et al disclose[s] a map display[] to a user
of a communication unit showing three public safety vehicles approaching
an incident location, the current location of the vehicles is presented by
respective icon” (Ans. 9).
We give the claim its broadest reasonable interpretation consistent
with the Specification. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir.
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1997). However, we will not read limitations from the Specification into the
claim. In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Claim 1 does not place any limitation on what “information” means,
includes, or represents other than that information is subscribed “on other
group members of a group” and then summarized, wherein the
summarization is based on “current information on at least one other group
member” and the “outcome” includes “a number of group members.” Claim
1 does not define who are “other group members” or whether “at least one
other group member” is one of “other members of a group.” In fact, claim 1
does not even define as to what comprises “a number” of group members.
Accordingly, we interpret “information” as any data on a group that is
being subscribed, as specifically defined in the claim. We also give the term
“summarizing” its broadest but most reasonable interpretation as any
presenting information/data in condensed form, and thus we give
“summarizing information on the group” its broadest, reasonable
interpretation as presenting information subscribed in condensed form,
including presenting a number of entities/members, based on updated
information of a member. We note that the specific recited language of
claim 1 does not even require that the “number” of “group members” be a
total of members of “the group” on which information is summarized, but
rather any number of members in any group.
We also note that while Appellants argue that Grube discloses
“prospective subscribers subscribing to, or registering for, an event” (App.
Br. 8, emphasis omitted) and that Grube discloses “information may be
updated in real-time and is associated with an event” (App. Br. 9), which
forces a user “to calculate, by counting, how many cars are displayed in
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order to determine a number of group members” (App. Br. 10), claim 1 does
not preclude that subscription to information also includes subscription to an
event or that summarized information also includes information being
updated in real-time which forces a user to calculate by counting .
Further, we note that what the information includes, i.e., “one other
group members of a group,” “on the group,” “on at least one other group
member” or “including at least one of a number of group members,” does
not limit how the respective “information” is subscribed, or summarized.
That is, the terms do not change the functionality of or provide any
additional function to the claimed “information.” Rather, these terms are
merely descriptions of their respective “information,” i.e., data. When
descriptive material is not functionally related to the claimed embodiment,
the descriptive material will not distinguish the invention from the prior art
in terms of patentability. See In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 1339 (Fed. Cir.
2004) and In re Gulack, 703 F.2d 1381, 1385 (Fed. Circ. 1983).
Thus, we note that these terms are merely descriptions of information
that is being subscribed in a subscribing step and information being
summarized in a subscribing step. That is, “information on other group
members,” “information on the group,” “current information on at least one
other group member,” and “group member information including at least one
of a number of group members” can be interpreted as any information/data
that is subscribed to, that is summarized, that is based on for summarization,
or that is produced as outcome.
Grube discloses providing a map display in a shared information
system to show a number of vehicles approaching an incident location, as
well as the planned routes and estimated time of arrival of the vehicles,
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wherein all information is updated in real-time as the vehicles change their
location (FF). We find that Grube discloses location information for a set of
subscribed members of a group, and we thus find no error in the Examiner’s
finding that Grube teaches “subscribers subscribing to a group location
information” (Ans. 8-9). Consequently, we find no error in the Examiner’s
finding that Grube discloses “subscribing to information” on other group
members of a group (id.).
Furthermore, we find the information displayed on the map display to
be a presentation of information in a condensed form, based at least on
information of the participating member vehicles, wherein the information
of the vehicles is updated in real-time. Since the presented information
includes the number of participating subscriber vehicles, i.e., 3 in the
example shown, the presented information thus includes a number of group
members. Thus, we find that Grube discloses presenting information
subscribed in condensed form, including presenting a number of members,
based on updated information of a member. Accordingly, we find no error
in the Examiner’s finding that Grube discloses “summarizing information on
the group at least based on current information on at least one other group
member whose information was subscribed to, wherein the outcome is
summarized group member information including at least one of a number
of group members” as required by claim 1.
Accordingly, for the above reasons, we affirm the rejection of claim 1
over Grube. Appellants do not provide arguments for claims 2-8 and 17-24;
thus, claims 2-8 and 17-24 fall with claim 1 over Grube.
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Claims 9-11
As for claims 9-11, Appellants merely contend that Maggenti “fail[s]
to cure the deficiencies of Grube et al.;” and merely add that “Maggenti et
al. does not even disclose a ‘phonebook,’ let alone ‘a group enhanced
phonebook’” and that “[t]here would have been no reason for the skilled
artisan to combine the teachings of Grube et al and Maggenti et al.” (App.
Br. 12).
As discussed above with respect to claim 1, we find no deficiencies
with respect to Grube. In addition, we find no error in the Examiner’s
finding that “[t]he list maintained by CD 202 [of Maggenti] is analogous in
function to a phone-book features, which is a list of names and dial-numbers
which are typically maintained in a standard wireless telephone” wherein “a
phone-book may be integrated with group list (enhanced phone-book)”
(Ans. 10). That is, since claim 9 does not define as to what is “a group-
enhanced phonebook” and does not even define as to what is “enhanced,”
we give “group-enhanced phone-book” its broadest reasonable interpretation
as a list of phone numbers for a group and, thus, “enhanced” by the group.
Furthermore, we find no error in the Examiner’s conclusion that it
would have been obvious to modify the system of Grube with Maggenti to
provide “a phonebook” so that the user will not be required “to memorize
group lists” (id.). Therefore, we find that providing a phonebook to Grube’s
group location sharing is no more than a simple arrangement of old
elements, with each performing the same function it had been known to
perform, yielding no more than one would expect from such an arrangement.
See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007).
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The skilled artisan would “be able to fit the teachings of multiple
patents together like pieces of a puzzle” since the skilled artisan is “a person
of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” Id. at 420-21. Appellants have
presented no evidence that providing a phonebook to Grube’s information
sharing was “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the
art” or “represented an unobvious step over the prior art.” Leapfrog
Enterprises, Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007)
(citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418-19).
Accordingly, we find that Appellants have not shown that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claims 9-11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over
Grube in further view of Maggenti.

V. CONCLUSIONS AND DECISION
Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in finding that
claims 1-8 and 17-24 are anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b); and that
claims 9-11are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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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