Ex Parte Addy

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 27, 2014

12113727 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 27, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte KENNETH L. ADDY

Appeal 2012-0043841
Application 12/113,727
Technology Center 2600
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Before JEAN R. HOMERE, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., and
JEFFREY S. SMITH, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Honeywell International
Inc. App. Br. 2.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1, 3–7, and 9–22.2 Claims 2 and 8 have been
canceled. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellants’ Invention
Appellant invented an alarm reporting method and system using a
low-powered cellular based femtocell (221) disposed within a secure area of
a home (200) to communicate to a central monitoring station (240) an alarm
message received wirelessly from an alarm reporting module (204) about an
environmental condition sensed within the home (200). Spec. ¶¶1, 39–41
Fig. 2.
Representative Claim
Independent claim 1 is representative. It reads as follows:
1. An alarm reporting system, comprising:
a plurality of homes;
a respective secure area within each of the homes;
a respective environmental sensor within each of
the homes that senses an environmental condition within
the secure area of the home;
a respective alarm reporting module within each of
the homes directly coupled to the environmental sensor
of the home, the alarm reporting module further
comprising a user interface and a logic unit, the logic unit
of the alarm reporting module correlates an incoming

2 Appellant indicates that claims 1, 3–7, 9–16, 18, and 20–22 are subject to
this appeal, leaving the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 17 and 19
unaccounted for. App. Br. 2, Final Rej. 13–14. Because Appellant’s failure
to contest this rejection constitutes a waiver of any arguments there against,
we therefore sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 17 and 19 pro forma.
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signal about the sensed environmental condition to the
environmental sensor and generates an alarm message to
a Central Monitoring Station;
a respective cellular transceiver within each of the
homes coupled directly to the alarm reporting module of
the home;
a femtocell disposed within the secure area of one
of the plurality of homes that wirelessly receives the
respective alarm messages about the sensed
environmental condition from the alarm reporting
module through the cellular transceiver of each of the
plurality of homes, the femtocell further comprising a
low-powered cellular base station;
a broadband modem within the femtocell or
directly coupled to the femtocell; and
an Internet Service Provider directly coupled to the
femtocell or through the broadband modem, the
femtocell using the Internet Service Provider to report the
alarm messages received from the alarm reporting
module through the cellular transceiver of each of the
plurality of homes and femtocell to the Central
Monitoring Station.

Prior Art Relied Upon
Koenck US 6,014,705 Jan. 11, 2000
Foster US 2008/0288986 A1 Nov. 20, 2008
Lie US 2009/0249067 A1 Oct. 1, 2009

Rejections on Appeal
The Examiner rejects the claims on appeal as follows:
Claims 1, 3–7, 9–16, 18, and 20–22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Foster and Lie.
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Claims 17 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Foster, Lie, and Koenk.3
ANALYSIS
We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim as they are presented in
the Appeal Brief, pages 9–15, and the Reply Brief, pages 2–3.4

Dispositive Issue: Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, did the Examiner err in finding
the proposed combination of Foster and Lie teaches or suggests , upon
receiving wirelessly through a transceiver an alarm message from an alarm
reporting module, a femtocell containing a low powered cellular base
reports the alarm to a central monitoring station, as recited in claim 1?
Appellant argues the proffered combination of references does not
teach the disputed limitations emphasized above. App. Br. 9, Reply Br. 3.
In particular, Appellant argues that Foster discloses integrated alarm system
having a security controller for communicating wirelessly with mobile users
to provide them with video streamlining of a detected event via the Internet
and cellular technologies. App. Br. 10, Reply Br. 3. Further, Appellant
argues that Lie is directed to a wireless system for allowing user’s homes
with private networks containing a femtocell to download content from a

3 Id. This rejection is omitted from the Answer, but appears at pages 13–14
of the Final Office action.
4 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner, we
refer to the Appeal Brief (filed September 14, 2011), the Reply Brief (filed
January 04, 2012) and the Answer (mailed November 30, 2011) for the
respective details. We have considered in this Decision only those
arguments Appellant actually raised in the Brief. Any other arguments
Appellant could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed
to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
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trusted network. App. Br. 10, Reply Br. 2. According to Appellant, Foster’s
use of the Internet is limited to video streamlining and Lie’s femtocell is
limited to downloading content as opposed to reporting alarm messages. Id.
In response, the Examiner finds Lie’s disclosure of using a cellular-
based femtocell in the private network within a subscriber’s residence to
communicate with a trusted network would complement Foster’s security
system to thereby allow the security controller to report detected alarm
events to a central monitoring location. Ans. 16–17.
On the record before us, we do not find error in the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of claim 1. In particular, Foster discloses a wireless
video surveillance security system in a monitored location (Fig. 5)
whereupon a sensor detecting an event, a controller (10) disposed within the
monitored location sends an alarm signal along with video stream of the
event to a monitoring location via a wireless access point. The controller
also utilizes the wireless access point to notify concerned users of the event
via text, as well as to allow the users to stream the event wirelessly. Foster
¶¶ 34–35. Further, Lie discloses a secure authentication system that allows
private home networks to utilize their internal femtocell to gain access to a
trusted network. Lie ¶21. According to Lie, the femtocell can include router,
wireless and cellular access point functionality to thereby provide secure
wireless access point and routing functionalities to the homes. Id. We find
Foster and Lie disclose prior art elements that perform their ordinary
functions to predictably result in a home surveillance system having a
controller that utilizes a femtocell to notify a monitoring station as well as
concerned users of a detected event, and also to transmit video streams of
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the event thereto. We therefore agree with the Examiner that Lie’s disclosure
of using femtocell for wireless access and notification would have thus
complemented Foster’s surveillance system. Hence, we find the cumulative
weight and the totality of the evidence on this record reasonably support the
Examiner’s position that the combined disclosures of Foster and Lie would
have taught or suggested the disputed limitations.
For at least the aforementioned reasons, we find Appellant has not
sustained the requisite burden on appeal of providing arguments or evidence
persuasive of error in the Examiner’s rejection of representative claim 1. It
therefore follows that Appellant has not shown that the Examiner erred in
finding that the combination of Foster and Lie renders claim 1 unpatentable.
Because Appellant has not presented separate patentability arguments
or have reiterated substantially the same arguments as those previously
discussed for patentability of claim 1 above, claims 3–7, and 9–22 fall
therewith. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 3–7, and 9–22 as set
forth above. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection
with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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