Ex Parte Yang et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 29, 2018

14568481 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 29, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/568,481 12/12/2014
28395 7590 07/03/2018
BROOKS KUSHMAN P.C./FG1L
1000 TOWN CENTER
22NDFLOOR
SOUTHFIELD, MI 48075-1238
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Hsin-hsiang Yang
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.
83482646 9530
EXAMINER
CASS, JEANPAUL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3669
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07 /03/2018 ELECTRONIC
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.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address( es):
docketing@brookskushman.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte HSIN-HSIANG YANG and KWAKU 0. PRAKAH-
ASANTE
Appeal2017-006713
Application 14/568,481
Technology Center 3600
Before MICHAEL L. HOELTER, BENJAMIN D. M. WOOD, and BRETT
C. MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2017-006713
Application 14/568,481
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner's rejection
of claims 1-17. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM-IN-PART.
THE INVENTION
Appellants' claims are directed generally "to the activation and
operation of a vehicle accessory system based on detection of an occupant's
gesture by a wearable device." Spec. i-f 1. Claim 1, reproduced below, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A vehicle comprising:
a window wiper motor assembly configured to move a
wiper on a window; and
at least one controller configured to communicate with at
least one personal activity tracking device that outputs a signal
indicative of a hand motion of at least one occupant, and in
response to the signal indicating a horizontal side to side wiping
motion, activate the assembly.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Miller
Kaplan
Mertens
Ricci
US 2010/0032980 Al Feb. 11, 2010
US 2014/0118244 Al May 1, 2014
US 2014/0222333 Al Aug. 7, 2014
US 2014/0309871 Al Oct. 16, 2014
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claim 1-3, 5-9, and 11-13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Ricci and Kaplan. Ans. 4, 5.
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Claims 4 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Ricci, Kaplan, and Mertens. Ans. 4.
Claims 14, 16, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Ricci, Kaplan, and Beasley. Ans. 5.
Claim 15 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Ricci, Kaplan, and Miller. Id.
Claims 4, 10, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as being
indefinite. Id.
ANALYSIS
Indefiniteness
The Examiner rejects claims 4 and 10 as indefinite for use of the term
"integrated signal." Final Act. 11. As Appellants point out, the
Specification describes how a signal is integrated in paragraph 36, and that
such usage is in the "ordinary mathematical [sense]." App. Br. 6. As such,
we agree that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand the usage as
claimed and do not sustain the rejection of claims 4 and 10. As to claim 15,
Appellants make no argument against this rejection based on the Examiner's
lack of understanding of the use of the term "magnitude." Accordingly, we
summarily affirm this rejection.
Obviousness
All of the prior art based rejections rely on the Examiner's
interpretation of Ricci as teaching the claimed personal activity tracking
device and the sensing/tracking associated therewith. The Examiner
interprets Ricci in two ways. The Examiner first asserts that Ricci teaches
sensing hand motions via the use of a wearable device. Ans. 8 ("[t]his can
be accomplished ... either by a camera that detects the user's hand to
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Application 14/568,481
determine a motion of the user or alternatively using a personal activity
tracking device 806 worn around the wrist"). While we agree that Ricci
discloses the use of wearable devices, nowhere does Ricci link the use of
wearables for detecting hand motions.
In describing the functions of the wearables in Ricci, the Specification
states that they "can include heart rate monitors, blood pressure monitors,
glucose monitors, pedometers, movement sensors, wearable computers, and
the like." Ricci i-f 378. While "movement sensors" are included in the list,
Ricci does not provide any further explanation as to how such "movement
sensors" would interact with its system. The only disclosure of sensing
gestures in Ricci is done via the use of sensors that are mounted in the
vehicle. In other words, Ricci teaches the use of sensors that emit a sensing
field and thus detect movement within that field. Ricci nowhere discloses
that it utilizes sensors embedded within a wearable device to detect the
motion of the portion of the body to which it's attached to interpret hand
gestures as triggers for vehicle accessory operation, as would be required to
meet the claims. Accordingly, we do not agree with the Examiner that Ricci
teaches the use of a personal activity tracking device that is capable of
detecting gestures as claimed.
Secondly, the Examiner asserts that "[ u ]nder the broadest reasonable
interpretation of the claims, the personal activity tracking device is not
limited to a wrist based device but may include any device that tracks the
personal activity of the driver including a camera that detects gestures."
Ans. 9. The Examiner's basis for this broad assertion is that "the appellant
states that the personal activity tracking device may optionally include a
wrist band type device" and so the Specification leaves the interpretation
open to other ways of sensing. Ans. 10. The Specification, however, makes
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Application 14/568,481
clear both explicitly and implicitly that the type of sensing devices disclosed
therein are wearable devices and are not just any system capable of detecting
hand gestures.
First, the Specification opens with an explanation that its Technical
Field is "related to the activation and operation of a vehicle accessory
system based on detection of an occupant's gesture by a wearable device."
Spec. i-f 1 (emphasis added). In the Background section, the Specification
discloses that "[a] wrist mounted wearable device or personal activity
tracking device allows for detection of wrist movement," thus equating
wearable devices with personal activity tracking devices. Spec. i-f 2. The
Specification goes on to explain that "[t]he personal activity tracking device
may include but is not limited to a wrist band, a smart watch, or a smart
ring," all of which are wearable devices. Spec. i-f 15.
As Appellants also point out, "[t]he words 'vision' or 'optical' for
example are not used in the specification," thus providing evidence that
interpreting the claims to include vision/computer sensors is inappropriate.
Reply Br. 2. Additionally, as Appellants note, "the first sentence of the
Background notes that '[i]mprovements in three-dimensional accelerometers
have been instrumental in increasing the acceptance of personal activity
tracking devices." Id. As such it is clear that, as used in Appellants'
Specification, a personal activity device is one that detects motion via an
accelerometer on the user's person as opposed to sensing movement via an
optical sensor as is done in Ricci.
While we are cautioned against importing limitations from the
Specification into the claims, we also must interpret the claims consistent
with the subject matter disclosed in the Specification. Here, the personal
activity tracking device is described only with examples of wearable
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devices. Further, the Specification opens with a description of the invention
as pertaining to detection of gestures via a "wearable device." While
Appellants may have left things somewhat open-ended so as to include other
wearable devices besides those specifically disclosed, we do not interpret the
Specification to cover any means of detecting hand gestures. When the
Specification consistently and exclusively describes the embodiments with
regard to wearable devices, we do not consider it to be reasonable to take the
open-ended language included in the Specification to be so broad as to allow
for any gesture sensing device, as the Examiner has done here.
Accordingly, we interpret "personal activity tracking device" to be
synonymous with "wearable device" and limit the claims only to devices
reasonably similar to wearable devices. Ricci discloses only vision sensors
for detecting hand gestures and so lacks the necessary teaching of a personal
activity device capable of sensing hand gestures. None of the prior art
references cures this deficiency in Ricci and so we do not sustain any of the
prior art rejections.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we REVERSE the Examiner's prior art-based
rejections of claims 1-17 and the rejection of claims 4 and 10 as indefinite
and we AFFIRM the Examiner's rejection of claim 15 as indefinite.
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) (2009).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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