Ex Parte Basir

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 21, 2017

13770873 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 21, 2017)

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.
13/770,873 02/19/2013 Otman A. Basir 60449-243 PUS1 5330
26096 7590 09/25/2017
CARLSON, GASKEY & OLDS, P.C.
400 WEST MAPLE ROAD
SUITE 350
BIRMINGHAM, MI 48009
EXAMINER
BOOMER, JEFFREY C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3669
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/25/2017 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):
ptodocket @ cgolaw. com
cgolaw@yahoo.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte OTMAN A. BASIR1
Appeal 2017-001838
Application 13/770,873
Technology Center 3600
Before ERIC S. FRAHM, LARRY J. HUME, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
1 This paper is captioned by inventor name according to our pre-AIA
convention. The Applicant/Appellant and real party in interest is Intelligent
Mechatronic Systems Inc. (See App. Br. 1.)
Appeal 2017-001838
Application 13/770,873
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1—4 and 14—17, which are all of the pending claims.2 We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
The application “relates to trip time computation, and more
specifically to a system for computing trip time that includes traffic profiling
and road condition-based computation with localized and cooperative
assessment.” (Spec. 11.) Claim 1, reproduced below, exemplifies the
subject matter on appeal:
1. A method for monitoring travel by a vehicle including the
steps of:
a) monitoring with a computer a plurality of routes traveled
by a vehicle from a plurality of origins to a plurality of destina­
tions;
b) based upon said step a), determining with the computer fre­
quently-traveled routes of the plurality of routes;
c) ranking the frequently traveled routes by frequency of
travel by the user; and
d) displaying the frequently-traveled routes in rank order to
the user.
2 Claims 8 and 9, although treated by the Examiner in the Answer, were
canceled in an October 19, 2105 Amendment that was entered in an
November 2, 2015 Advisory Action. They are not a part of this appeal.
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Application 13/770,873
THE REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Smith et al.
Panabaker et al.
Yoshioka et al.
Scofield et al.
Singh
US 2008/0081641 Al
US 2008/0091341 Al
US 2008/0177462 Al
US 2011/0224893 Al
US 2011/0264365 Al
Apr. 3, 2008
Apr. 17, 2008
July 24, 2008
Sept. 15,2011
Oct. 27, 2011
THE REJECTIONS3
1. Claims 1, 2, and 4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Smith and Singh. (See Final Act. 4—7.)
2. Claims 3,14, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Smith, Singh, and Scofield. (See Final Act. 7—9.)
3. Claims 16 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Smith, Singh, and Panabaker. (See Final Act. 9-11.)
4. Claims 1,2, and 4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Yoshioka and Singh. (See Final Act. 11—13.)
5. Claims 3,14, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Yoshioka, Singh, and Scofield. (See Final Act. 13—16.)
6. Claims 16 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Yoshioka, Singh, and Panabaker. (See Final Act. 16—17.)
3 Rejections of claims 1, 8, 10, 12, and 14—17 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, have been withdrawn. (See Ans. 3.)
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Appeal 2017-001838
Application 13/770,873
ANALYSIS
Obviousness of Claims 1, 2, and 4 over Smith and Singh
The Examiner finds that Smith discloses most of the features of
claim 1, but that it “does not disclose the technique of ranking routes and
displaying routes in rank order.” (See Final Act. 5—6.) However, the
Examiner further finds that “Singh teaches the old and well-known
technique of assigning weights to different routes (i.e. ranking routes) and
displaying routes in rank order” and that the combination would have been
predictable and would have “resulted] in an improved user-friendly system
that would allow for the most relevant route among a plurality of routes to
be selected and displayed while still allowing for the user to see other routes,
thereby, improving user choice.” {Id. at 6, citing Singh || 34—37 & Fig. 6.)
Appellant first asserts “[t]he Examiner argues that Smith discloses
‘displaying the frequently-traveled routes to the user,’” but that “[t]his is
incorrect” because “Smith gathers information regarding frequently-traveled
routes by the user, but only for the purpose of informing the user of traffic
conditions on such routes” and “Smith does not ‘display’ more than one
route to the user.” (App. Br. 3.) Appellant also argues that “all of [Smith’s]
routes are from the current origin (the user’s current location), not a
‘plurality of origins, ’ since the purpose in Smith is to provide traffic
information that is relevant to the user's current location.” (Id. )
The Examiner responds that “[0061-62] and [0079] of Smith disclose
that a plurality of different routes are used in the navigation routine.”
(Ans. 6.) The Examiner further states that “Smith does disclose that
multiple routes based on a frequently-traveled criteria are displayed,” which
is sufficient because “‘[displaying the frequently-traveled routes’ does not
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Application 13/770,873
require that the routes be displayed simultaneously, only that the invention
displays more than one route based on frequently-traveled criteria.” (Id. )
We agree with the Examiner because Smith states in paragraph 62 that
the “notification system 250 will calculate travel time on each route stored in
the system, and return the quickest route, or if desired, travel times on all of
the routes so that the subscriber can choose the route to take.” We find this
sufficient to teach “displaying the frequently-traveled routes,” as claimed.
With respect to “a plurality of origins,” Smith describes a system that tracks
routes between various destinations. (See, e.g., 1 62.) The claim does not
require that the set of routes that is displayed include different origins.
Appellant next argues that “Singh only teaches a routing module that
factors in the frequency with which others travel a route as a weighting as to
which route to present to the user,” and that, although “[t]his helps the user
choose the route most traveled by similar users,” “the claim requires that the
routes are ranked based upon frequency as traveled ‘by the user.’” (App.
Br. 3.)
The Examiner responds that Smith was used to teach “the frequently-
traveled routes by the user” and “Singh was solely used to teach the
technique of ranking routes and displaying the ranked routes in rank order.”
(Ans. 6.) We find Appellant’s argument unpersuasive because it is directed
to Smith alone, rather than to the combination made by the Examiner, in
which Smith was used to show monitoring of routes used by the user (see,
e.g., 1 62 (“if a subscriber has more than one route between a pair of
Destinations, the subscriber can query the system to see which route has the
shortest travel time”)) and Singh was used to show displaying in ranked
order.
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Application 13/770,873
Finally, Appellant argues that “even if Singh displays the most-
ffequently-traveled routes and the frequency of such routes, that is not the
same as ‘displaying the frequently traveled routes in rank order,’” and “[t]he
routes must be displayed ‘in rank order’ in order to meet the claim.” (App.
Br. 4.) We agree with the Examiner that the weights used in Singh (see
Singh || 34—37) result in a display “in rank order” (e.g., thickest to thinnest)
under the broadest reasonable construction of the claim language.
Because we find Appellant’s arguments insufficient to establish
Examiner error, we sustain the rejections of claim 1 as obvious in view of
Smith and Singh, as well as the same rejection of claims 2, 4, 16, and 17
which are not argued separately.
Obviousness of Claims 3, 14, and 15
over Smith, Singh, and Scofield
Claim 3 recites that the method of claim 1 further includes “displaying
idle times for each of the frequently-traveled routes.”
Appellant, citing a definition from the EPA of “idle” as “engine
running, but vehicle not moving,” argues that “Scofield discloses delays due
to traffic but that is not the same as ‘idle time. ’” (App. Br. 4.) Appellant
elaborates that “[d]ue to traffic and/or weather, a vehicle might be moving
30 mph on a freeway that has a speed limit of 55 mph, which would be
generate a traffic delay because the actual transit time would be different
from the expected transit time; however, this is not ‘idle time’ because the
vehicle is not ‘idling’ at all but moving slowly” where “[i]n contrast, a
vehicle at a complete stop at a traffic light, for example, would experience
‘idle time.’” (App. Br. 4—5.)
We agree with the Examiner that “idle” is reasonably broadly
interpreted to mean “not having much activity,” that “[hjigh traffic situations
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Application 13/770,873
result in a vehicle ‘not having much activity’ relative to normal/low-traffic
situations,” and that displaying delay times due to traffic displays times
associated with idle behavior. (Ans. 8.) We note that the claim requires
displaying “idle times for each of the frequently-traveled routes,” not idle
times for a vehicle, as in the EPA definition, and agree with the Examiner
that “[t]he claims do not require that idle be solely representative of an idle
engine.” (Ans. 8.)
We accordingly sustain the Section 103 rejection of claim 3, as well
as the same rejection of its dependent claims 14 and 15, which are not
argued separately.
Obviousness of Claims 1, 2, and 4 over Yoshioka and Singh
Because we sustain the rejections of claims 1—4 and 14—17 as obvious
in view of Smith and Singh, we do not reach the obviousness rejections of
those same claims based on Yoshioka and Singh. See In re Hyon, 679 F.3d
1363, 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2012); In re Cleave, 560 F.3d 1331, 1338 (Fed. Cir.
2009).
DECISION
We affirm the rejections of claims 1—4 and 14—17.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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