Ex Parte Zimmermann

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 21, 2017

13728546 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 21, 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.
13/728,546 12/27/2012 Sebastian Zimmermann 080437.65103US 1972
23911 7590 04/25/2017
CROWELL & MORING LLP
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY GROUP
P.O. BOX 14300
WASHINGTON, DC 20044-4300
EXAMINER
HERZOG, MADHURI R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2438
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/25/2017 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):
edocket @ crowell. com
tche @ crowell. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SEBASTIAN ZIMMERMANN
Appeal 2017-000927
Application 13/728,5461
Technology Center 2400
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., and
NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1—21. We have jurisdiction over the pending
rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
1 Appellant identifies Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft as the
real party in interest. (App. Br. 1.)
Appeal 2017-000927
Application 13/728,546
Appellant’s disclosed and claimed invention is directed to processing
data in one or more control devices of a motor vehicle. (Abstract.)
Independent claim 18, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal:
18. A vehicle comprising:
one or more control devices; and
a user interface configured to receive a request from a user
of the vehicle to activate a data protection mode for one or more
control devices without regard to a location of the vehicle,
wherein, when in the data protection mode, the one or
more control devices are configured such that predetermined data
to which the one or more control devices have access during
usage of the vehicle are at least one of:
prevented from being transmitted out of the vehicle
by suppressing communications from the motor vehicle to a
back-end server when such predetermined data would otherwise
have been automatically transmitted out of the vehicle had the
data protection mode not been activated,
permitted to be transmitted only after entry of a
confirmation requested by the user of the vehicle when such
predetermined data would otherwise have been automatically
transmitted out of the vehicle without said confirmation had the
data protection mode not been activated, and
deleted, automatically after a predefined period of
time, from the one or more control devices in which such
predetermined data are stored during usage of the vehicle when
such predetermined data would otherwise not be deleted
automatically had the data protection mode not been activated.
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Application 13/728,546
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 18, 19, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. §
102(b) as being anticipated by Trapani (US 2006/0139454 Al, pub. June 29,
2006). (Final Act. 3—6.)
The Examiner rejected claims 1—5, 10-17, and 20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Trapani and Alrabady et al. (US
2010/0211770 Al, pub. Aug. 19, 2010) (“Alrabady”). (Final Act. 6-15.)
The Examiner rejected claims 6—8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Trapani, Alrabady, and Wright et al. (US 2010/0036560
Al, pub. Feb. 11, 2010) (“Wright”). (Final Act. 15-16.)
The Examiner rejected claim 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Trapani, Alrabady, and Wee (US 2004/0088090 Al, pub.
May 6, 2004). (Final Act. 16—17.)
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief presents the following
dispositive issue:2
Whether the Examiner erred in finding Trapani discloses the
independent claim 18 limitation:
a user interface configured to receive a request from a user of the
vehicle to activate a data protection mode . . . when in the data
protection mode, the one or more control devices are configured
such that predetermined data ... are at least one of: prevented
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed May 20, 2016); the Reply
Brief (filed Oct. 10, 2016); the Final Office Action (mailed Jan. 7, 2016);
and the Examiner’s Answer (mailed Aug. 12, 2016) for the respective
details.
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Application 13/728,546
from being transmitted . . . permitted from being transmitted . . .
and deleted....
and similar limitations recited in independent claims 1,19, and 21 (App. Br.
4-9).
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments the Examiner erred. We disagree with Appellant’s arguments,
and we adopt as our own (1) the pertinent findings and reasons set forth by
the Examiner in the Action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 3—17)
and (2) the corresponding findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in
the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (Ans. 2—7).
We concur with the applicable conclusions reached by the Examiner, and
emphasize the following.
In finding Trapani discloses the claim limitations at issue, the
Examiner relies on the following disclosure of Trapani, which states in-part:
The transmission selection may include sending all transmissions
automatically, sending no transmissions, and prompting the
operator for permission prior to sending a transmission .... For
example, an operator may select a transmission selection to not
respond to any received requests for data.
(Final Act 4, quoting Trapani 147.) The Examiner finds that Trapani teaches
receiving a request from the operator of the vehicle to activate a data
protection mode, based on the Examiner’s finding that the broadest
reasonable interpretation of “data protection mode” encompasses Trapani’s
“transmission selection” quoted above. (Ans. 3—4, citing Spec. Tflf 9, 11 and
Trapani 147.)
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Appeal 2017-000927
Application 13/728,546
Appellant argues that Trapani does not teach a data protection mode
activated by user request. (Reply Br. 1—2; Appeal Br. 4—5.) However,
Appellant’s argument is conclusory and without evidentiary support; further,
Appellant offers no rebuttal to the Examiner’s reasonable interpretation of
“data protection mode.”
Appellant also offers a “but for” argument, contending that Trapani
fails to disclose or suggest “that a default operation Y would have occurred
but for activation of the data protection mode that triggers a data protection
operation X.” (App. Br. 6; see also, Reply Br. 2-4.)
We agree with the Examiner that this argument is unpersuasive as
Trapani’s system operates “autonomously,” and absent the user selection
“the user would not have chosen to be prompted for permission and data
would have been transmitted out of the vehicle automatically” (Ans. 5, citing
Trapani 145). Appellant’s argument that the Examiner is relying on two
separate embodiments—one with user interface 32 and the other without
user interface 32 (Reply Br. 3—4), is unpersuasive because one skilled in the
art would understand Trapani’s autonomous operation as the default
operation when the user does not engage with the user interface to make a
selection. Thus, here the claimed “activation] [of] a data protection mode”
and the claimed “prevented from being transmitted” limitations encompasses
Trapani’s user transmission selection of “selecting no transmissions”
(Trapani 147) in which no further data is transmitted out of the vehicle.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, we sustain the anticipation rejection of
claims 18, 19, and 21.
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Appeal 2017-000927
Application 13/728,546
For the reasons stated above, we also sustain the obviousness
rejections of claims 1—5, 10-17, and 20 over Trapani and Alrabady, of
claims 6—8 over Trapani, Alrabady, and Wright, and of claim 9 over
Trapani, Alrabady, and Wee, which are not separately argued with
particularity. See App. Br. 7—10.
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—21 is affirmed.
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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