Ex Parte Aaron et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Feb 20, 2009

10675517 (B.P.A.I. Feb. 20, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte JEFFREY A. AARON and ROBERT E. WRIGHT
____________

Appeal 2008-1863
Application 10/675,517
Technology Center 2100
____________

Decided:1 February 20, 2009
____________
Before JAMES D. THOMAS, JOSEPH L. DIXON,
and JAY P. LUCAS, Administrative Patent Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 CFR § 1.304, begins to run from the decided date
shown on this page of the decision. The time period does not run from the
Mail Date (paper delivery) or Notification Data (electronic delivery).
Appeal 2008-1863
Application 10/675,517

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1 through 20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We affirm.
INVENTION
Appellants’ invention is directed to collecting and handling
information relating to authorized individuals, their authorized privileges,
and their accessing equipment and equipment spaces in conjunction with
alerting an individual that another individual’s scope of privileges has been
accessed. (Spec. [0005]).
REPRESENTIVE CLAIM
1. A method of outputting an alert that an unauthorized event has
occurred, the method comprising:

obtaining a status from a sensor;

retrieving personnel information comprising identity and status
information for the personnel from a database, the personnel information
relating to the sensor;

generating the alert;

applying a filter to determine whether to modify a severity of the alert;
and

outputting the alert.

2
Appeal 2008-1863
Application 10/675,517

PRIOR ART AND EXAMINER’S REJECTION
Vinberg US 2003/0023722 A1 Jan. 30, 2003
Sands US 2004/0148526 A1 Jul. 29, 2004
(Filing date Jan. 24, 2003)
Claims 1 through 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103. As
evidence of obviousness, the Examiner relies upon Vinberg in view of
Sands.
CLAIM GROUPING
Based on Appellants’ arguments in the principal Brief on appeal, we
will decide the appeal on the basis of independent claim 1, since the Brief
alleges corresponding subject matter is present in independent claims 1, 10,
and 18. They are all argued collectively. No other claim is argued.
ISSUE
Have Appellants shown that the Examiner erred in finding that the
combination of Vinberg and Sands teaches the feature of “retrieving
personnel information comprising identity and status information for the
personnel from a database” as recited in representative claim 1 on appeal
and correspondly recited in independent claims 10 and 18?
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. The biometric authentication server software block 140 in figure 1 of
Sands is shown in greater detail in figure 2 such as to include database 205.
Figure 3 shows a biometric profile associated with every user’s ID.
Paragraph [0053] teaches that this biometric profile is stored in the same
database 205 and that “the database stores biometric measurements for the
user taken by one or more devices present on the network that the user needs
to access.”
3
Appeal 2008-1863
Application 10/675,517

2. As set forth at the bottom page 5 of the principal Brief on appeal
“Appellants acknowledge that Sands discloses storing a user’s biometric
profile in a database.” The Reply Brief also states at the top of page 2 “[a]s
explained on page 5 of the Brief, Appellants acknowledge that Sands
discloses storing a user’s biometric profile in a database that may reside, for
example, in storage media 205 shown in FIG. 2. (Sands, Paragraphs 50, 53,
and 69).”
3. In paragraph [0054] of Sands it is stated “[t]he enrollment officers
may also configure a user’s network access privileges and other information
and may modify a user’s profile or delete a user altogether. In this manner,
the enrollment manager controls which users are allowed to use the system
and stores the biometric profiles of all users in the enrollment database.”
4. The Examiner’s statements to the contrary notwithstanding, Vinberg’s
figure 1B shows the topology of the management system that includes an
object repository 110 that stores all the objects for consideration in this
patent as expressed in paragraph [0023]. Figure 2 in turn shows in the right
portion this object repository 110.
5. Collectively taken, figures 3A-3C of Vinberg show various categories
of system objects or data structures, network related individual component
devices, status, and group associations. As illustrated in these figures and
discussed in paragraphs [0034 – 0036], these group associations include
identifications by operator ID or work station ID, for example, having being
construed as relating to groups of people such as AR relating to account
receivable business groups. The figures show a correlation and status of

4
Appeal 2008-1863
Application 10/675,517

individuals or groups of individuals to the system of events and devices and
the importance or severity or risk of failure of the system or parts of it to the
overall mission of the system.
ANALYSIS
Based on Appellants’ arguments presented at the top of page 6 of the
principal Brief on appeal, Appellants do not argue that Vinberg and Sands
are not properly combinable within 35 U.S.C. § 103, only that the
combination of them does not yield all the recitations of independent claims
1, 10, and 18 on appeal. As noted earlier, the focus of the arguments is upon
the sole feature of representative independent claim 1 on appeal relating to
the relationship of a database storing personnel information comprising their
identity and status information. No other feature recited in representative
independent claim 1 on appeal is argued not to be present in the combination
of teachings.
To the extent argued in the Brief and Reply Brief, the claimed feature
of “retrieving personnel information comprising identity and status
information for the personnel from a database” does not require the
recitation of the information to be in the same database or the same memory
for that matter.
Contrary to the positions taken at page 5 of the principal Brief and
page 2 of the Reply Brief, Findings of Facts 1 through 3 clearly indicate that
the disabled/not-disabled status for a user is stored in the same database.
The discussion of paragraphs [0053-0054], and the showing in figure 3 of
5
Appeal 2008-1863
Application 10/675,517

the biometric profile of every individual by ID number clearly indicate user
accessibility to particular devices including access privileges or the absence
of them in database 205. An access privilege clearly is consistent with
Appellants’ own use of “status information” in dispute in the representative
independent claim 1 on appeal and even as disclosed in paragraphs [0023-
0024] to include authorized access zones.
Thus, we disagree with Appellants’ views that the claimed
arrangement of information within a database is not taught in Sands. Our
conclusion with respect to this reference is buttressed by the actual teachings
and showings in Vinberg as well, as the artisan would well appreciate from
the discussion in Findings of Facts 4 and 5. The artisan would have
appreciated that the broadly defined “status information” of the claims on
appeal is also taught and shown by Vinberg.
CONCLUSION OF LAW
Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in finding that the
combination of Vinberg and Sands teaches the sole disputed feature of
“retrieving personnel information comprising identity and status information
for the personnel from a database” as recited in representative independent
claim 1 on appeal.
DEICISION
The Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 of claims 1 through
20 over the combination of Vinberg and Sands is affirmed. Claims 1
through 20 are not patentable.

6
Appeal 2008-1863
Application 10/675,517

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

pgc

AT&T Legal Department - MB
Attn: Patent Docketing
Room 2A-207
One AT&T Way
Bedminster, NJ 07921
7