MICROSOFT CORPORATION

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Oct 6, 2020

13862481 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Oct. 6, 2020)

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.
13/862,481 04/15/2013 Miron Vranjes 338638-US-NP 3710
39254 7590 10/06/2020
Barta, Jones & Foley, P.C.
(Patent Group - Microsoft Corporation)
3308 Preston Road
#350-161
Plano, TX 75093
EXAMINER
THERIAULT, STEVEN B
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2179
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/06/2020 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):
docket@bjfip.com
usdocket@microsoft.com
uspto@dockettrak.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MIRON VRANJES, JESSE CLAY SATTERFIELD,
MATTHEW ISAAC WORLEY, CHAITANYA SAREEN,
NILS ANDERS SUNDELIN, RICHIE FANG, ALICE STEINGLASS,
ROBERT JAMES JARRETT, and KAIKAI WANG
Appeal 2019-002367
Application 13/862,481
Technology Center 2100

Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and
DAVID J. CUTITTA II, Administrative Patent Judges.

CUTITTA, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–23, all the claims under
consideration. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Microsoft
Technology Licensing, LLC. Appeal Br. 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Invention
A “computer operating system does not typically give the user input
into the initial placement of [a] launched application window.” Spec. ¶ 1.2
Appellant’s claimed subject matter relates to “providing a deferred
placement prompt when an application window is launched.” Id. at ¶ 2.
Using “the deferred placement prompt, the user can provide a directional
placement instruction (e.g., a ‘drag’ of the prompt, a selection of a screen
region, a keyboard input) to indicate the user’s preference for placement of
the launched window” thereby allowing “the user to provide placement input
before the window is presented to the user.” Id. at ¶¶ 1, 2.
Exemplary Claim
Claims 1, 9, and 17 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below with
certain limitations at issue italicized, exemplifies the claimed subject matter:
1. A method comprising:
detecting an application launch event indicating a user
selection to launch an application window of a first application;
and
presenting a deferred placement prompt in a user
interface responsive to the detection, the deferred placement
prompt being presented concurrently with an application
window of a second different application within the user
interface and being associated with presentation of the
application window of the first application into the user
interface;

2 We refer to: (1) the originally filed Specification filed April 15, 2013
(“Spec.”); (2) the Final Office Action mailed June 1, 2018 (“Final Act.”); (3)
the Appeal Brief filed November 8, 2018 (“Appeal Br.”); (4) the Examiner’s
Answer mailed December 13, 2018 (“Ans.”); and (5) the Reply Brief filed
January 28, 2019 (“Reply Br.”).
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receiving a directional placement instruction associated
with the deferred placement prompt, the directional placement
instruction including an instruction to an operating system
indicating a placement of the application window of the first
application relative to the application window of the second
different application within the user interface; and
initiating presentation of the application window in the
user interface based on the directional placement instruction after
the directional placement instruction is completed.
Appeal Br. 20 (§ VIII. Claims Appendix).
REFERENCES
The Examiner relies on the following prior art references:
Name Number / Title Date
Tsuruoka US 2011/0154248 A1 June 23, 2011
Ricci US 2013/0241720 A1 Sept. 19, 2013
Shiplacoff US 2013/0346922 A1 Dec. 26, 2013
Raghu US 8,633,913 B1 Jan 21, 2014
Vonshak US 2014/0096049 A1 Apr. 3, 2014
REJECTIONS
The Examiner makes the following rejections:
Claims Statute Basis Final Act.
1–4, 6–11, 13, 15–22 § 103 Tsuruoka, Raghu, Vonshak 3
5, 12 § 103 Tsuruoka, Raghu, Vonshak,
Shiplacoff
15
14, 23 § 103 Tsuruoka, Raghu, Vonshak, Ricci 16
OPINION
We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellant and in light of Appellant’s arguments and evidence.
Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential).
Arguments not made are waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2018).
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Application 13/862,481

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We disagree with Appellant that the Examiner errs and adopt as our own the
findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner to the extent consistent with
our analysis herein. Final Act. 3–6; Ans. 3–19. We add the following
primarily for emphasis.
Claim 1 recites “receiving a directional placement instruction . . .
indicating a placement of the application window of the first application
relative to the application window of the second different application within
the user interface.” Appeal Br. 35. The Examiner relies primarily on Raghu
to teach or suggest this limitation. Final Act. 4–5 (citing Raghu 8:26–29
[sic] [recte 7:26–29], 3: 65–66, and Fig. 2C).
Figure 2C of Raghu is reproduced below with annotations added.

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Figure 2C of Raghu depicts an avionics data display interface that
displays icons in icon region 230 and avatars in avatar region 240. Raghu
6:18–37. “Icons are a symbolic representation of the aviation data. Raghu
6:21–23. An avatar is a scaled representation of a full-format image
displaying live data obtained from different avionics systems and modules.
Raghu 3:32–57. “For example, an avatar may display Synthetic Vision
System (SVS) 302, primary flight display 304, topographical map 306, chart
308, airport map 310, Integrated Control Display Unit (ICDU) 312, radio
tuning 314, Engine Indicating and Crew Alert System (EICAS) 316,
checklist 318, synoptics information 320, and weather radar 322.” Raghu
6:38–46. Dragging an icon from icon region 230 to avatar region 240 causes
an avatar corresponding to the icon to display in the avatar region. See
Raghu 7:26–29 (“Dragging from an icon location 210 to an avatar location
212 causes the information symbolically represented by the icon to become
scaled representation of the live data displayed in the selected avatar
location.”). The Examiner relies on the dragging of an icon in the icon
region to a particular location in the avatar region to teach or suggest the
limitation at issue because the dragging of the icon causes an avatar to
display at a particular location in the avatar region concurrently with another
displayed application window. Final Act. 4.
Appellant argues that Raghu’s avatars are not associated with different
applications. See Appeal Br. 8 (“Rather than allow for selective placement
of windows associated with different applications, Raghu’s aviation display
system includes features that allow the user to ‘switch between full-format
images of live data or scaled-representations of the live data and an icon
symbolic of live data.’”).
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The Examiner, in turn, finds that “Raghu suggests that the windows
[(avatars)] are of different applications.” Ans. 10 (citing Raghu 11:20–30,
9:45–55).
Appellant’s argument is unpersuasive because Appellant fails to
establish that the Examiner’s interpretation of “application window,” as
recited in claim 1, is unreasonably broad or inconsistent with Appellant’s
Specification. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed.
Cir. 2004). Appellant has not shown that the Specification defines expressly
the term “application window,” nor does Appellant offer any other definition
for the term. Rather, the Specification describes the term in non-limiting
language by describing an “application window” in open-ended language as
including “without limitation a window of the operating system components,
an operating system utility, and a special purpose application program (e.g.,
a Web browser program, a word processing program, a spreadsheet
program).” Spec. ¶ 11. In view of this open-ended description, Appellant
fails to set forth any disclosure of an application in the Specification that is
inconsistent with the Examiner’s interpretation. In re Morris, 127 F.3d
1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Appellant, therefore, fails to demonstrate that
the Examiner’s interpretation of “application window” as encompassing
Raghu’s avatar window is inconsistent with Appellant’s Specification or is
otherwise unreasonable. In re Smith Int’l, Inc., 871 F.3d 1375, 1382–83
(Fed. Cir. 2017). As the Examiner determines (Ans. 10), in Raghu, different
avatars receive data from different modules and systems that perform
different functions, each of which different modules/systems can be
reasonably interpreted as an application (Raghu 6:41–46).
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Claim 1 further recites “presenting a deferred placement prompt in a
user interface responsive to the detection, the deferred placement prompt
being presented [(1)] concurrently with an application window of a second
different application within the user interface and [(2)] being associated with
presentation of the application window of the first application into the user
interface.”
The Examiner finds both Tsuruoka and Raghu generally teach a
deferred placement prompt. Final Act. 3–4; Ans. 13. More specifically, the
Examiner finds Tsuruoka’s deferred placement prompt teaches or suggests
limitation (2) and Raghu’s deferred placement prompt teaches or suggests
limitation (1). Final Act. 3–5 (citing Tsuruoka ¶ 51, Raghu 8:34–38, 8:26–
29). The Examiner determines that it would have been obvious,
to modify the method of Tsuruoka to allow the deferred
placement prompt to be used with concurrently displaying
applications as taught by Raghu. One would have been
motivated to make such a combination so that the deferred
placement prompt window displaying mechanism could be used
more than one time, allowing any window use the same
directional display mechanism regardless of displayed windows
and thus resulting in greater ease of use for the user.
Final Act. 5.
Appellant argues that the Examiner cannot rely on two different
references to teach different aspects of the deferred placement prompt.
Appeal Br. 11–12. According to Appellant, “the Examiner impermissibly
interprets the term ‘deferred placement prompt’ inconsistently” because the
Examiner relies on Raghu to teach the first claimed aspect of the limitation,
(1) and Tsuruoka to teach the second claimed aspect of the limitation, (2).
Id. (emphasis omitted). Appellant further argues “the Office has shown
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no evidence whatsoever from the cited references of knowledge of the
skilled artisan suggesting any need for a prompt that provides such
functionality” and therefore “Applicant’s specification appears to be the
exclusive source that provides motivation” and it “logically follows that the
motivation to combine Raghu and Tsuruoka been improperly gleaned from
Applicant’s own specification and . . . is an exercise of impermissible
hindsight.” Id. at 14–15.
According to the Examiner, (1) “[t]here is nothing improper with the
office actions reliance on the teachings of multiple references to find specific
limitations would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill” and (2)
Appellant “has not identified any knowledge relied upon by the Examiner
that was gleaned only from Appellant’s disclosure and that was not
otherwise within the level of ordinary skill in the art at the time of
invention.” Ans. 13–14.
Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner (1) cannot rely on the
combined teachings of Tsuruoka and Raghu and (2) must rely exclusively on
the cited references for the motivation to combine are misplaced. Appeal
Br. 14–15. The Supreme Court has rejected the rigid application of the
“teaching, suggestion, or motivation” test for obviousness. KSR Int’l Co. v.
Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 422 (2007). Instead, the Court held that rather
than being bound by the express teachings of the prior art, the Examiner
“can consider the inferences and creative steps a person of ordinary skill in
the art would employ” and that “[c]ommon sense teaches . . . that familiar
items may have obvious uses beyond their primary purposes, and in many
cases a person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of multiple
patents together like pieces of a puzzle.” Id. at 420.
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The Examiner has provided reasoning to show that combining certain
teachings of Tsuruoka and Raghu to arrive at the claimed deferred placement
prompt was “well within the grasp of a person of ordinary skill in the
relevant art and that the benefit of doing so would be obvious.” Id. at 400.
Appellant fails to persuasively rebut the Examiner’s reasoning.
For the reasons discussed, Appellant has not persuaded us of
reversible error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent
claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of that claim, as
well as the rejection of independent claims 9 and 17, and dependent claims
2–8, 10–16, and 18–23, which Appellant does not argue separately with
particularity. Appeal Br. 16–18.
CONCLUSION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–23 under
35 U.S.C. § 103.
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–4, 6–11,
13, 15–22
103 Tsuruoka, Raghu,
Vonshak
1–4, 6–11,
13, 15–22

5, 12 103 Tsuruoka, Raghu,
Vonshak, Shiplacoff
5, 12
14, 23 Tsuruoka, Raghu,
Vonshak, Ricci
14, 23
Overall
Outcome
1–23

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Application 13/862,481

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TIME PERIOD FOR 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