Jean-Luc Derouineau et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Oct 31, 2019

14860849 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Oct. 31, 2019)

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.
14/860,849 09/22/2015 Jean-Luc Derouineau H0042583 (002.1449) 2145
89955 7590 10/31/2019
HONEYWELL/LKGLOBAL
Patent Services
115 Tabor Road
P.O.Box 377
MORRIS PLAINS, NJ 07950
EXAMINER
HAILE, BENYAM
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2686
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/31/2019 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):
DL-PMT-SM-IP@Honeywell.com
honeywell@lkglobal.com
patentservices-us@honeywell.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte JEAN-LUC DEROUINEAU and MATEJ DUSIK1
____________________

Appeal 2018-009199
Application 14/860,8492
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, LARRY HUME, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.

BENNETT, 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, 4, 6–11, 13–17, 19, 20, 21, and 23, which are all of the
pending claims. Claims 2, 3, 5, 12, 18, and 22 have been cancelled. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “Applicants” as defined in 37
C.F.R. § 1.42(a).
2 Appellant’s Brief (“App. Br.”) identifies the real party in interest as
Honeywell Int., Inc. App. Br. 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to “methods and systems for managing and
presenting situational awareness information.” Spec. ¶ 2. Specifically, these
methods and systems are provided for “displaying information on a display
device of an aircraft as well as processing crowd sourced information from
other aircraft, sensors and information systems in a ground server, and
provid[ing] it back to aircraft via communication means.” Abstract.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method of displaying information on a display device of
an aircraft, comprising:
retrieving information from a situational awareness
system about a current situation wherein the information is
received from a plurality of inputs wherein a particular input
comprises receiving the current situation that has been entered
by a user wherein the information comprises consolidated
situation awareness data which is generated by fusing data from
sources and storing the data in a datastore for retrieval by the
situational awareness system, the consolidated situation
awareness data having a higher value than situation awareness
data;
determining current situation display data to display based
on a particular information about the current situation; and
graphically displaying, by one or more graphical
representations, the particular information on the display to
indicate the current situation display data wherein the situational
awareness system is configured to determine:
in a first step which of a plurality of other aircrafts are
within a current network,
in a second step of those within the current network which
of the other aircrafts may gain a benefit from the current situation
display data, and
in a third step to communicate selectively the situational
awareness data to each aircraft deemed to benefit therefrom
wherein the particular information about the current
situation has been entered by the user from the other aircrafts and
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the current situation display data includes graphic widgets data
which indicates a particular graphical representation of the
current situation, the graphics widgets data can enable the display
of the other aircrafts located ahead of a current flight path of the
aircraft as a graphic on a map relative to locations of the other
aircrafts which can be designated as a source of information by
the other aircrafts from which to receive information or
commence an exchange of information to the aircraft,
the graphically displaying further comprising:
displaying at least a selection button on the display to
select, by the user, information indicating the current situation
whereupon selection by the user of the selection button enables
generating information indicating the current situation of the
aircraft which corresponds to the selection button selected by the
user provided on the user interface.
App. Br. 32–33 (Claims Appendix).
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Hanks et al.
Kronfeld et al.
Sampigethaya
US 2012/0304007 Al
US 8,344,933 B1
US 9,310,477 B1
Nov. 29, 2012
Jan. 1, 2013
Apr. 12, 2016

REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 4, 6–11, 13–17, 19, 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sampigethaya and Kronfeld. Final
Act. 3.
Claims 21 and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Sampigethaya, Kronfeld and Hanks. Final Act. 11.

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ISSUES
First Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Sampigethaya and
Kronfeld teach, suggest, or otherwise render obvious “receiving the current
situation that has been entered by a user wherein the information comprises
consolidated situation awareness data which is generated by fusing data
sources,” as recited in claim 1?
Second Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Sampigethaya and
Kronfeld teach, suggest, or otherwise render obvious “consolidated situation
awareness data with a higher value than situation awareness data,” as recited
in claim 1?
Third Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Sampigethaya and
Kronfeld teach, suggest, or otherwise render obvious “displaying at least a
selection button on the display to select, by the user, information indicating
the current situation whereupon selection by the user of the selection button
enables generating information indicating the current situation of the aircraft
which corresponds to the selection button selected by the user provided on
the user interface,” as recited in claim 1?
Fourth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Sampigethaya and
Kronfeld teach, suggest, or otherwise render obvious “wherein the particular
information about the current situation has been entered by the user from the
other aircrafts,” as recited in claim 11?
Fifth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Sampigethaya,
Kronfeld and Hanks teach, suggest, or otherwise render obvious “a data
fusion module configured to: receive the information of the current
situation; perform one or more machine learning applications on the
information which has been received; and provide a semantic understanding
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of the information of the current situation from the information received to
increase an overall awareness of the current situation to a user,” as recited in
independent claim 21?
Sixth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding the cited references
teach the inter-aircraft communication recited in each of independent claims
11 and 21?
ANALYSIS
First Issue
In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner relies on Sampigethaya and
Kronfeld. Relevant to this issue, the Examiner finds the limitation
“receiving the current situation that has been entered by a user wherein the
information comprises consolidated situation awareness data which is
generated by fusing data sources,” is taught by Sampigethaya. Final Act. 3
(citing Sampigethaya col. 5, ll. 2–17; col. 6, ll. 22–29, 56–63; col. 7, ll. 17–
26, 32–35, 49–55). Appellant argues the Examiner has erred because
“Sampigethaya is only understood to receive radar data based on regions of
interest (Column 5, lines 14–17) and fusing data in the received situational
awareness information (Column 5, lines 5–7).” App. Br. 19.
We are not persuaded of Examiner error. Sampigethaya describes an
air traffic management (“ATM”) system which receives situational
awareness information associated with other aircraft in order to display a
present location and flight path on an air traffic map in an aircraft.
Sampigethaya col. 2, l. 58–col. 3, l. 2. Sampigethaya further teaches that
“[s]ituation awareness information is shared among aircraft” (col. 4,
ll. 36–37) and that the ATM system “generates and updates the dynamic
map of air traffic by processing and fusing data in the received situational
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awareness information with the data from additional databases.” We agree
with the Examiner that this disclosure in Sampigethaya teaches or at least
suggests the disputed limitation.
Second Issue
Claim 1 also recites the limitation “consolidated situation awareness
data with a higher value than situation awareness data.” App. Br. 32
(Claims Appendix). The Examiner finds this limitation taught by
Sampigethaya. Final Act. 3–4. More specifically, the Examiner finds that
Sampigethaya teaches supplementing situation awareness data with
information gathered from a plurality of sources. Final Act. 3–4 (citing
Sampigethaya col. 5, ll. 2–18). The Examiner finds that because the
supplemented situation awareness data includes more information about the
current situation than the non-supplemented information, a person of
ordinary skill in the art would have understood it to have a higher value that
single-source data. Final Act. 4.
Appellant asserts Sampigethaya does not teach “the consolidated
situation awareness data having a higher value” because “the consolidated
situation awareness data [is not] compared to any received situation
awareness data.” App. Br. 19.
We are not persuaded of Examiner error. Claim 1 does not recite or
require a “comparison” as Appellant alleges. Rather, it only requires that the
consolidated situation awareness data have a “higher value” than the non-
consolidated situation awareness data. Appellant does not explain why the
Examiner’s determination that the fused situation awareness data has a
higher value is unsupported, and merely states that “[t]hese elements are
missing from Sampigethaya.” App. Br. 19. This bare assertion is
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insufficient to show Examiner error, and we are not persuaded by
Appellant’s arguments regarding this limitation.3
Third Issue
Claim 1 also recites the limitation:
displaying at least a selection button on the display to select, by
the user, information indicating the current situation whereupon
selection by the user of the selection button enables generating
information indicating the current situation of the aircraft which
corresponds to the selection button selected by the user provided
on the user interface.
App. Br. 33 (Claims Appendix). The Examiner finds Sampigethaya teaches
this limitation, except that it teaches a touchscreen input device generally,
and does not does not teach a “selection button” as the specific input
mechanism. Final Act. 4–5. The Examiner introduces Kronfeld to cure this
deficiency, finding that it teaches a system that provides situation awareness
information having selectable user interface elements. Final Act. 5 (citing
Kronfeld col. 3, ll. 55–58; col. 6, ll. 10–32; col. 7, l. 62–col. 8 l. 6).
Appellant challenges the Examiner’s findings:
Kronfeld fails to disclose displaying at least a selection button on
the display to select, by the user, information indicating the
current situation whereupon selection by the user of the selection
button enables generating information indicating the current
situation of the aircraft which corresponds to the selection button
selected by the user provided on the user interface as recited in
claim 1.

3 See In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“[W]e hold that the
Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive
arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and
a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the
prior art.”)
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App. Br. 20.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments because Appellant
does not address the specific findings made by the Examiner. Specifically,
Appellant argues Kronfeld is deficient because the passage at column 6,
lines 55–58 does not provide “any teaching of the claim features.” App. Br.
20–21. However, the Examiner does not cite this passage in Kronfeld in
rejecting the claims. Rather, the Examiner cites other disclosure provided by
Kronfeld.
We agree with the Examiner’s findings because Kronfeld teaches the
use of selectable user interface elements which include buttons. See
Kronfeld at col. 3, ll. 55–58. We further agree with the Examiner that the
use of Kronfeld’s UI elements to select specific data corresponding to
aircrafts or airborne systems teaches or at least suggests the disputed
limitation “selection button selected by the user provided on the user
interface.” Kronfeld col. 6, ll. 12–32. Accordingly, we are not persuaded
the Examiner erred with respect to the argued limitation.
Fourth Issue
Both claim 1 and claim 11 recite the limitation “wherein the particular
information about the current situation has been entered by the user from the
other aircrafts.” App. Br. 35 (Claims Appendix). In rejecting claim 1, the
Examiner relies on Sampigethaya as teaching this limitation. Final Act. 4
(citing Sampigethaya col. 6, ll. 22–29 and col. 7, ll. 49–55). Appellant
argues “[t]he combination of Kronfeld and Sampigethaya fail to disclose that
the information indicating the current situation has been entered by users of
the other aircrafts on the aircraft display,” adding that [t]here is no selective
sharing of current information between aircrafts.” App. Br. 22.
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We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument for two reasons. First,
the claim does not recite the argued “selective sharing of current information
between aircrafts.” (Id.) As such, Appellant’s argument is not
commensurate with the scope of the claim. Second, Appellant does not
address the specific findings made by the Examiner. In particular, Appellant
does not provide any explanation or reasoning for why Sampigethya’s
situational data, which is communicated among aircrafts, does not teach or at
least suggest that information has been entered by “the user from the other
aircrafts.”
Moreover, Appellant does not explain why the Examiner’s finding
that Kronfeld’s data sharing and communicating threat assessment or
forecast information with other aircraft teaches “information indicating the
current situation has been entered by users of the other aircrafts” is in error.
Kronfeld col. 7, ll. 62– col. 8, l. 6. Because the data taught by these
references is information related to weather, flocks of birds, air traffic,
locations of turbulence, etc. that is in the flight paths of the airborne objects,
the data displayed is data on flight paths only and thus is selective.
Sampigethaya Col. 11, ll. 4–6. Therefore, we are not persuaded by
Appellant’s argument that the cited references fail to teach or suggest
“wherein the particular information about the current situation has been
entered by the user from the other aircrafts.”
Fifth Issue
Independent claim 21 recites:
a data fusion module configured to: receive the information of
the current situation; perform one or more machine learning
applications on the information which has been received; and
provide a semantic understanding of the information of the
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current situation from the information received to increase an
overall awareness of the current situation to a user.
App. Br. 36 (Claims Appendix). The Examiner relies primarily on Hanks
for this limitation, finding that Hanks teaches a machine learning system to
correlate data between multiple aircraft and determine abnormal situations.
Final Act. 13 (citing Hanks ¶¶ 64, 65).
Appellant argues the Examiner has erred because:
The Hanks reference is not related in any manner and teaches use
of correlating data between multiple aircrafts to identify
abnormal situations. There is no teaching to "perform one or
more machine learning applications on the information which
has been received; and provide a semantic understanding of the
information of the current situation from the information
received to increase an overall awareness of the current situation
to a user" as required by the claim. The Kronfeld reference fails
to show this feature and does not meet the claim limitations.
App. Br. 27–28. We disagree.
Hanks teaches the use of a CEP/machine learning system which is
used on an aircraft network as a protection mechanism to ensure aircraft are
not compromised. We agree with the Examiner that a person of ordinary
skill in the art, possessing the teachings of Hanks, Sampigethaya, and
Kronfeld, would have found it obvious to implement Hanks’ machine
learning on received information as taught by Sampigethaya and Kronfeld
because doing so would have allowed for an improved understanding of data
received from multiple aircraft. See Ans. 13.
Sixth Issue
Appellant also contends that various limitations recited in claims 11
and 21 are not met because “there is no mention of a network
communication of one aircraft to another and to another.” App. Br. 27. We
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are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument because Sampigethya’s airline
fleet network, enabling communication between multiple airborne objects,
teaches or at least suggests networked communications between aircraft.
Sampigethaya, Col. 4, ll. 32–36.
Remaining Claims
For the reasons explained above, Appellant’s arguments do not
persuade us the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claims 1, 11,
and 21. Appellant does not present any arguments for any dependent claim,
the dependent claims each fall along with their respective independent
claims.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 4, 6–11, 13–17, 19–21,
and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
DECISION SUMMARY
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 4, 6–11,
13–17, 19,
20
103 Sampithegaya,
Kronfeld
1, 4, 6–11, 13–
17, 19, 20

21, 23 103 Sampithegaya,
Kronfeld, Hanks
21, 23
Overall
Outcome
1, 4, 6–11, 13–
17, 19–21, 23

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FINALITY AND RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED