Ex Parte Argenbright et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 18, 2012

10240479 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 18, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte KEITH E. ARGENBRIGHT, RONALD E. GALBRAITH, and
AUDREY J. NUDD
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Appeal 2011-005093
Application 10/240,479
Technology Center 3600
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Before ANTON W. FETTING, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and
NINA L. MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judges.

MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2011-005093
Application 10/240,479

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1-28. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

STATEMENT OF THE DECISION
We REVERSE.1

BACKGROUND
Appellants’ invention is directed to a computer-implemented method
for providing a decision flowchart of a triage protocol for a medical
condition of a patient (Spec. 3, ll. 20-30).
Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on
appeal:
1. A computer-implemented method of providing a decision
flowchart of a triage protocol for a medical condition of a
patient, the flowchart including a plurality of decision blocks,
each decision block relating to one or more patient symptoms,
considerations, or symptoms and considerations, the flowchart
being part of a software application, the method comprising:
(a) programming the flowchart by:
(i) providing a plurality of exit points in the flowchart,
each exit point being associated with a respective decision
block, each exit point being reached upon the presence or
absence of a set of symptoms, set of considerations, or set of
symptoms and considerations, each exit point recommending an
action to be taken by the patient;

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief
(“App. Br.,” filed August 6, 2010) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed
December 28, 2010), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed
October 28, 2010).
Appeal 2011-005093
Application 10/240,479

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(ii) providing on a computer user interface that interacts
with the software application a plurality of recommended
actions to be taken by the patient for the same presence or
absence of a set of symptoms, set of considerations, or set of
symptoms and considerations, the plurality of recommended
actions including recommended actions that were previously
programmed into the flowchart; and
(iii) individually selecting a recommended action via the
computer user interface at selected exit points from the plurality
of recommended actions, the decision flowchart thereby
providing different recommended courses of action for a patient
having the same presence or absence of a set of symptoms, set
of considerations, or set of symptoms and considerations, the
recommended action being an exit message for the respective
exit point; and
(b) providing the programmed flowchart for use by a
patient who has a medical condition.

THE REJECTIONS
The following rejections are before us for review:
Claims 1-9, 11-23, and 25-28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Jeffrey J. Guterman, et al. (Assessing the
effectiveness of a computer-based decision support system for emergency
department triage, IEEE, 594-95 (1993) (hereinafter “Guterman”)) in view
of Iliff (US 6,234,964 B1, iss. May 22, 2001).
Claims 10 and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Guterman in view of Iliff and Arora (US 5,911,145, iss.
Jun. 8, 1999).

Appeal 2011-005093
Application 10/240,479

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ANALYSIS
Independent claim 1 and dependent claims 2-14
We are persuaded of error on the part of the Examiner by Appellants’
argument that neither Guterman nor Iliff discloses or suggests programming
a flowchart as recited in limitations (a)(ii) and (a)(iii) of claim 1 by
providing, on a computer user interface, a plurality of recommended actions
to be taken by a patient for a particular set of symptoms, considerations, or
symptoms and considerations and individually selecting, via the computer
interface, a recommended action from the plurality of recommended actions
to thereby provide different recommended courses of action for patients
having the same set of symptoms, considerations, or symptoms and
considerations (App. Br. 6-10 and Reply Br. 1-3).
The Examiner acknowledges that Guterman does not expressly
disclose “‘a plurality of recommended actions to be taken by the patient for
the same presence or absence of a set of symptoms, set of considerations, or
set of symptoms and considerations’ and wherein a different selection [of a
recommended course of action] may be made/reached for the same presence
or absence of a set of symptoms or considerations,” i.e., limitations (a)(ii)
and (a)(iii) of claim 1 (Ans. 6). And the Examiner relies on Iliff as
disclosing these features (Ans. 6-7). Pointing to column 13, lines 49-67,
column 16, lines 9-65, and Figure 8, the Examiner thus asserts that Iliff
discloses that patients having the same symptoms receive different
recommended courses of action based on the severity of the symptom or a
determination that the symptom is a side effect related to the patient’s
current therapy.
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Application 10/240,479

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A fatal flaw in the Examiner’s argument is that the cited portions of
the Iliff specification, including Figure 8, are not related to programming a
flowchart, which is subsequently provided for use by a patient who has a
medical condition. Instead, the cited portions merely describe, with
reference to Figures 8 and 9, the algorithm steps that are executed when a
pre-programmed flowchart is used by a patient with a medical condition.
There is no teaching or suggestion in Iliff that the recommended
actions at the exit points of the flowchart shown in Figure 8 may be
selectively programmed, via a computer user interface, before the flowchart
is provided for use by a patient so that individual patients having the same
“symptoms, set of considerations, or set of symptoms and considerations”
receive different recommended actions. Instead, the flowchart is fixed such
that two patients, using the Iliff system as shown in Figure 8, who have the
same symptoms and same degree of symptom severity, will receive the same
recommended action.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We also will not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 2-14.

Independent claims 15 and dependent claims 16-28
Independent claim 15 includes language substantially similar to claim
1. Therefore, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of independent
claim 15 under § 103(a) for the same reasons as set forth above with respect
to claim 1. We also will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent
claims 16-28.

Appeal 2011-005093
Application 10/240,479

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DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is
reversed.

REVERSED

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