Ex Parte Blowers et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 17, 2014

10650497 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 17, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
_____________

Ex parte PAUL A. BLOWERS, JOEL R. LAUER,
CHRISTOPHER M. MANDRODT, CHERYL J. PROTAS,
SEEMA PADMANABHAN, WILLIAM M. SHERMAN,
and JAMES E. WILLENBRING
_____________

Appeal 2012-003255
Application 10/650,497
Technology Center 3600
______________

Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, ANTON W. FETTING, and
MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, Administrative Patent Judges.

CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the rejection
of claims 1, 3–11, 13–22, 24–29, 31–36, 38–43, and 45–47.
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We concur with Appellants’
contention that the Examiner erred, because:
[t]he determination of clinically significant events by the CPU
in Rueter takes place with respect to data that is collected from
a single patient by the CPU that makes the determination and is
implanted within the patient from which the data is collected.
Therefore, such events are not received from one or more
remote monitors, much less from one or more remote monitors
that obtain the events from interrogation a plurality of medical
Appeal 2012-003255
Application 10/650,497
2

devices implanted within different patients. Rather, such events
relate to a single patient in which the CPU is implanted.
Consequently, the determination of clinically significant events
in Rueter is not a prioritization technique that prioritizes events
received from the interrogation of a plurality of medical devices
implanted within different patients. Accordingly, the “CPU” in
Rueter cannot reasonably be said to disclose the “prioritization
engine” recited in Appellant’s claim 1.
Reply Brief 4–5.
Accordingly, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
independent claims 1, 8, 17, 29, 33, and 39 and the rejections of dependent
claims 3–7, 9–11, 13–16, 18–22, 24–28, 31, 32, 34–36, 38, 40–43, and 45–
47.

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner is reversed.

REVERSED

mls