MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS, INC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 24, 2022

2021000017 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 24, 2022)

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. 15/907,382 02/28/2018 ALEXANDER SOSNOVSKY PAT21802-US-PRI 3856 22917 7590 01/24/2022 MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS, INC. IP Law Docketing 500 W. Monroe 43rd Floor Chicago, IL 60661 EXAMINER KIM, MATTHEW DAVID ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2483 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/24/2022 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): USAdocketing@motorolasolutions.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ALEXANDER SOSNOVSKY, OLESYA EVSTRATOVA, and JACOB SHEM TOV Appeal 2021-000017 Application 15/907,382 Technology Center 2400 Before DAVID J. CUTITTA II, MICHAEL J. ENGLE, and SCOTT RAEVSKY, 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 7, 8, and 10-13, which are all of the claims under consideration.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a) (2012). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Motorola Solutions, Inc. Appeal Brief filed June 20, 2019 (“Appeal Br.”) at 3. 2 Appellant cancelled claims 1-6 and 9. Appeal Br. 10, 12. Appeal 2021-000017 Application 15/907,382 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Summary The subject matter of Appellant’s application relates to “unmuting audio” in a video stream. Spec. ¶ 10.3 By way of background, Appellant explains that many public-safety officers now wear cameras that stream video to a dispatch center: When multiple officers simultaneously share video from their body-worn cameras, a dispatch center may have multiple video streams from multiple officers streaming simultaneously. When viewing multiple streamed videos simultaneously (for example on multiple screens at a dispatch center), dispatch operators often mute the audio on the multiple videos to prevent confusion. Muting of the videos often leads to critical content being missed. Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for un- muting audio so that critical content is not missed by the officer. Spec. ¶ 1. To address this need, Appellant proposes a method for unmuting an officer’s audio at the dispatch center based on state information from a gun- draw sensor worn by the officer indicating the officer’s gun has been drawn. Id. ¶ 11. Exemplary Claim Claims 7 and 12 are independent. Claim 7, reproduced below, exemplifies the claimed subject matter: 7. A method comprising the steps of: 3 In addition to the Appeal Brief noted above, we refer to: (1) the original Specification filed February 28, 2018 (“Spec.”); (2) the Final Office Action mailed June 4, 2019 (“Final Act.”); and (3) the Examiner’s Answer mailed July 25, 2019 (“Ans.”). Appeal 2021-000017 Application 15/907,382 3 receiving state information at a dispatch center from a gun-draw sensor worn by an officer, the gun-draw sensor being part of a personal-area network (PAN), the officer being remote from the dispatch center; receiving streaming video and audio at the dispatch center from a camera; operating a speaker at the dispatch center in a muted state; mapping the state information for the gun-draw sensor worn by the officer to a mute/unmute state for the speaker at the dispatch center; and unmuting the speaker at the dispatch center based on the state information for the gun-draw sensor worn by the officer. Appeal Br. 11, Claims Appendix. REFERENCES AND REJECTION The Examiner rejects claims 7, 8, and 10-13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over the combined teachings of Johnson et al. (US 2014/0167954 A1, published June 19, 2014) (“Johnson”), Sun et al. (US 2015/0156598 A1, published June 4, 2015) (“Sun”), and Del Rosario (US 2015/0369559 A1, published Dec. 24, 2015). Final Act. 9-16. OPINION We review the appealed rejection 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). We disagree with Appellant that the Examiner errs and we adopt as our own the findings and conclusions set forth by the Examiner to the extent consistent with our analysis herein. Final Act. 2-16; Ans. 3-5. Appeal 2021-000017 Application 15/907,382 4 The Examiner relies on Johnson to teach or suggest most of the limitations of claim 7. Final Act. 9-10. The Examiner notes “Johnson does not explicitly teach mute/unmute condition states as needed for the limitations of claim 7” but finds “Sun, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches operating a speaker in a muted state . . . mapping the state information for the [sensor] to a mute/unmute state for the speaker . . . and unmuting the speaker based on the state information for the [sensor].” Id. at 10 (emphasis omitted). The Examiner determines “[o]ne would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to correctly forward audio when an active speaker is identified.” Id. The Examiner notes “the combination of Johnson and Sun does not explicitly teach devices and sensors other than the camera as needed for the limitations of claim 7” but finds “Del Rosario, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches a gun draw sensor worn by an officer, the gun draw sensor being part of a personal-area network.” Id. at 11 (emphasis omitted). The Examiner determines “[o]ne would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to detect the removal of a weapon from such a weapon holster and then act through preventative or reactive methods to limit force misuse, force abuse, and collateral damage between parties.” Id. After summarizing each of the references, Appellant concludes the Examiner’s rejection is erroneous and all of the claims are allowable over the cited art because: Combining these references results in a system with a gun draw sensor sending video to the dispatch center, the video sent may be muted when interference is detected. Nowhere is it taught to operate the video in a muted state, detect the gun-draw, and then operate in an unmuted state. Appeal 2021-000017 Application 15/907,382 5 Appeal Br. 8. There are two main problems with Appellant’s argument. First, the Appeal Brief does not make a specific, evidence-based argument on the merits, but rather paraphrases the claim and concludes, based on Appellant’s summary of the references, that the claim is not taught by the cited combination. Appeal Br. 8. With such a vague summary of the claim disputed, and Appellant declining to point out which specific limitation is not taught by the cited combination, we are at a loss to parse Appellant’s argument. It is Appellant’s responsibility to persuade us of Examiner error, and when Appellant’s argument does not point specifically to any error, we are constrained to affirm. In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (approving of “the Board’s practice to require an applicant to identify the alleged error in the examiner’s rejections”); see also Halliburton Energy Servs., Inc. v. M-I LLC, 514 F.3d 1244, 1250 n.2 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (“A skeletal ‘argument’, really nothing more than an assertion, does not preserve a claim. . . . Judges are not like pigs, hunting for truffles buried in briefs.”) (quoting United States v. Dunkel, 927 F.2d 955, 956 (7th Cir. 1991) (per curiam)). The second problem with Appellant’s argument relates to the first. Namely, Appellant’s argument, even if it were supported by evidence, does not address the actual reasoning of the Examiner’s rejection. Appellant, instead, attacks the references singly for lacking teachings that the Examiner relies on a combination of references to show. It is well established one cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Appeal 2021-000017 Application 15/907,382 6 Cir. 1986). Our reviewing court requires that references must be read, not in isolation, but for what they fairly teach in combination with the prior art as a whole. Merck, 800 F.2d at 1097. Accordingly, Appellant does not persuade us of reversible error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 7. We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of that claim, as well as the rejection of claims 8 and 10-13, which Appellant does not argue separately. Appeal Br. 8. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 7, 8, 10-13 103 Johnson, Sun, Del Rosario 7, 8, 10- 13 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) (2013). AFFIRMED