Ebner, Fritz Francis. et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 26, 2019

14084947 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Dec. 26, 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.
14/084,947 11/20/2013 Fritz Francis Ebner 20121166USNP/106681.39901 9480
75313 7590 12/26/2019
XEROX CORPORATION C/O FOX ROTHSCHILD LLP
Princeton Pike Corporate Center
997 Lenox Drive, Building 3
Princeton, NJ 08648-2311
EXAMINER
PETERS, LISA E
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2862
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/26/2019 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):
ipdocket@foxrothschild.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte FRITZ FRANCIS EBNER and YVES HOPPENOT
Appeal 2019-002595
Application 14/084,947
Technology Center 2800
Before JEFFREY B. ROBERTSON, DONNA M. PRAISS, and
JANE E. INGLESE, Administrative Patent Judges.
ROBERTSON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL1
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–5, 7–14, and 16–18. See Appeal Br.
7. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 This Decision includes citations to the following documents:
Specification filed November 20, 2013 (“Spec.”); Final Office Action
mailed February 22, 2018 (“Final Act.”); Appeal Brief filed September 4,
2018 (“Appeal Br.”); Examiner’s Answer mailed December 12, 2018
(“Ans.”); and Reply Brief filed February 12, 2019 (“Reply Br.”).
2 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 Xerox
Corporation. Appeal Br. 3.
Appeal 2019-002595
Application 14/084,947

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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellant states the invention relates to estimating power
consumption, such as power consumption for a print device. Spec. ¶ 1.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter
(Appeal Br. 23, Claims Appendix):
1. A method of polling a device comprising:
sending, by a processing device, a first polling request to a
device to be polled after an elapsed first period of time;
receiving, at the processing device, a first polling
response from the device to be polled;
determining, by the processing device, a mode the device
to be polled is currently operating in based upon the first
polling response;
determining whether the mode corresponds to a high
power state by accessing a power model associated with the
device to be polled, wherein the power model identifies a power
consumption level for the mode;
in response to determining that the mode corresponds to a
high power state, sending, by the processing device, a second
polling request to the device to be polled after an elapsed
second period of time, wherein the second period of time is
shorter than the first period of time and is determined based
upon historic information related to operation of the device to
be polled.

Claim 10 is also independent and recites a system for polling a device,
and includes a non-transitory computer medium including programming
instructions, that similar to claim 1, includes a first and second polling
request, where the second polling request is shorter than the first period of
time and is determined based upon historic information related to operation
of the device to be polled. Id. at 25–26.
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Application 14/084,947

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REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
Agnetta et al.
hereinafter
“Agnetta”
US 2008/0079989 A1 April 3, 2008
Ishizuka US 2009/0110427 A1 April 30, 2009
Seeber et al.
hereinafter
“Seeber”
US 2012/0065802 A1 March 15, 2012

REJECTIONS
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1–5, 7, 9–14, 16, and 18 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over Seeber and Agnetta. Final Act. 3–7.
2. The Examiner rejected claims 8 and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
obvious over Seeber, Agnetta, and Ishizuka. Id. at 8.

OPINION
Rejection 1
Appellant presents the same or similar arguments with respect to the
claims subject to this rejection. See Appeal Br. 7–20. We select claim 1 as
representative for disposition of this rejection. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).

The Examiner’s Rejection
The Examiner found Seeber discloses a non-transitory computer
readable medium including programmable instructions for causing a
processing device to send a first polling request to a device to be polled after
an elapsed first period of time, where power information is used to
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determine the power state of an asset, and accessing a power model that
identifies a power consumption level. Final Act. 3–4. The Examiner found
Seeber does not explicitly disclose a second polling request where the
second period of time is shorter than a first period of time determined based
on historic information related to operation of the device to be polled. Id. at
4. The Examiner found Agnetta discloses in response to determining that a
condition occurs, sending a second polling request, where the second polling
request occurs after an elapsed second period of time, where the second
period of time is shorter than the first period of time and is determined based
on historical information related to the operation of the device to be polled.
Id. at 4–5. The Examiner determined it would have been obvious to have
utilized the method of determining a second polling request time disclosed in
Agnetta in combination with Seeber to achieve the expected benefit of
minimizing network traffic and allowing for more printers on the network.
Id. at 5. The Examiner determined that Agnetta is relied upon to teach an
automated polling interval adjustment technique as opposed to Seeber’s
menu selection polling interval adjustment technique. Ans. 4.

Appellant’s Contentions
Appellant argues Seeber does not adjust the polling rate of the device,
and Agnetta, although disclosing adjusting the polling rate based on the
consumption of consumables such as paper toner and ink, is silent with
respect to adjusting polling rates based on the power state of the device.
Appeal Br. 8–9. Thus, Appellant contends the Examiner did not provide
sufficient reasoning to support the combination of prior art in the manner set
forth in the rejection. Id. at 9–11, 13–15. Appellant contends the
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Examiner’s combination would render Agnetta unsuitable for its intended
purpose. Id. at 11–13.

Issue
The dispositive issue is:
Has Appellant identified reversible error in the Examiner’s
determination that it would have been obvious in view of Agnetta, to have
modified the polling method disclosed in Seeber, in response to determining
that the operating mode of the device is in a high power state, to incorporate
a second polling request after an elapsed second period of time, wherein the
second period of time is determined based upon historic information related
to the operation of the device to be polled?

Discussion
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner’s
rejection is not sufficiently supported by the record. That is, we agree with
the Examiner that Appellant’s arguments focus on the references
individually rather than the combination of references as whole. Ans. 4,
citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800
F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
In particular, Seeber discloses polling devices including printers in
order to determine power consumption and energy efficient management of
the devices. Seeber ¶¶ 2, 65, 67, 75, 90; Figs. 2, 6A, 6B. Seeber discloses
power information is retrieved to determine whether a device is turned off or
on, or is in some other power state, leading to a power profile that is stored
in a database for subsequent processing and use. Id. ¶ 142. Seeber discloses
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further that polling times may be set based upon system capabilities of the
energy management system and the desires of the system user via buttons to
set the time intervals. Id. ¶¶ 147, 214, Fig. 15D.
Agnetta discloses polling printers on a network for supply levels of
consumables, where historic rates of use of a consumable are used to access
current rates of use of the consumable and can be used to increase polling
intervals of subsequent polls. Agnetta ¶¶ 8, 22, 28. In other words, Agnetta
discloses that a second elapsed period of time before polling may be shorter
based on historical information regarding the consumable polled after a first
period of time. Agnetta discloses also that “consumables” broadly includes
“anything that is used or consumed by a printer in producing a hardcopy
document” (Agnetta ¶ 10), which would include the power “consumed” by
the printer in order to complete the printing job.
Thus, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that merely
because Agnetta does not mention power as a consumable, Seeber and
Agnetta are directed to different problems such that one of ordinary skill in
the art would not have modified Seeber in view of Agnetta in order to obtain
the benefits of automatic and efficient consumption rate monitoring
disclosed in Agnetta for the power monitoring in Seeber. See Agnetta ¶ 43.
Therefore, we are of the view that the Examiner’s rationale of
modifying the manual process of Seeber with the automatic process in
Agnetta is sufficiently supported by the record. Indeed, in KSR, the
Supreme Court explained, “[w]hen a work is available in one field of
endeavor, design incentives and other market forces can prompt variations of
it, either in the same field or a different one. If a person of ordinary skill can
implement a predictable variation, §103 likely bars its patentability.” KSR
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Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007). “A person of ordinary
skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” Id. at 421.
See also In re Venner, 262 F.2d 91, 95 (CCPA 1958) (“It is well settled that
it is not ‘invention’ to broadly provide a mechanical or automatic means to
replace manual activity which has accomplished the same result.”).
Moreover, in view of Seeber’s disclosure discussed above, that times
between polls may be adjusted and that the power profile data collected as a
result of polling is stored in a database for future use, we are of the view that
one of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of
success in combining Seeber and Agnetta as explained by the Examiner.
Further, we are of the view that the Examiner’s combination would not
render Agnetta unsatisfactory for its intended purpose. As the Examiner
points out, Seeber is being modified with Agnetta (Ans. 6), and although the
methods disclosed in Agnetta may need to be modified to provide for polling
based on power states of a device, we are not persuaded that such
modifications would rise to the level of rendering Agnetta unsatisfactory for
its intended purpose of reducing network traffic, because the monitoring
technique would provide the benefit of automatic power state monitoring in
Seeber.
As a result, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, as well as
claims 2–5, 7, 9–14, 16, and 18.

Rejection 2
Claims 8 and 17 depend from claims 1 and 10, respectively, and both
recite that the high power state “comprises a print mode.” Appeal Br. 25,
27, Claims Appendix. The Examiner found Seeber and Agnetta do not
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explicitly disclose a high power state that comprises a print mode. Final
Act. 8. The Examiner found Ishizuka discloses a print mode, and by also
disclosing a stand-by mode and a power saving mode, one of ordinary skill
in the art would have understood from Ishizuka that printing is a high power
mode. Id. citing Ishizuka ¶ 24.
Appellant argues Ishizuka does not disclose the printing mode is a
high energy state, rather Ishizuka discloses all modes, including the printing
mode, are energy saving modes. Appeal Br. 21.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument because it is not
supported by the express disclosure in Ishizuka. Ishizuka discloses (¶ 24):
Printing apparatus 100 includes several operational
modes for energy-saving. The operational modes include a
printing mode in which printing is being performed, a standby
mode in which the printing apparatus is out of the printing
mode and a heater is driven to keep a fixing device inside in a
heat-generating state in order to prepare for a subsequent
printing operation, and a power-saving mode in which the
heater is stopped in order to reduce power consumption if
printing demand is absent for a predetermined period after the
last printing operation, and the like.

We understand from this disclosure that Ishizuka discloses operational
modes including a standby mode and a power-saving mode, which provide
energy-saving capabilities when the printer is not in a printing mode.
Moreover, Appellant’s reliance on Ishizuka’s Figure 3 as showing that the
printing mode consumes less power is misplaced, as Figure 3 refers to the
estimated power values for each week as a cumulative total rather than the
power used in each individual state. See Ishizuka ¶¶ 25–30. As a result, we
are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments.
Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 8 and 17.
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CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–5, 7–14, and 16–18 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 are affirmed.

DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–5, 7, 9–
14, 16, 18
103 Seeber, Agnetta 1–5, 7, 9–
14, 16, 18

8, 17 103 Seeber, Agnetta,
Ishizuka
8, 17
Overall
Outcome
1–5, 7–14,
16–18

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