Ex Parte BlumenbergDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 29, 201613221836 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 29, 2016) Copy Citation 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. 13/221,836 08/30/2011 Christopher Blumenberg P5040USC1/63266-5577US 4276 61725 7590 01/03/2017 Morgan T ewis; Rr Rnokins; T T P / AT EXAMINER 1400 Page Mill Road Palo Alto, CA 94304-1124 DAO, TUAN C. ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2193 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/03/2017 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): padocketingdepartment@morganlewis.com vskliba @ morganlewis. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHRISTOPHER BLUMENBERG Appeal 2015-007394 Application 13/221,836 Technology Center 2100 Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, KRISTEN L. DROESCH, and JENNIFER L. McKEOWN, Administrative Patent Judges. McKEOWN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 22—50. Claims 1—21 are cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant’s invention relates to “to application programming interfaces that provide gesture operations.” Spec. 12. More specifically, “[a]t least certain embodiments of the present disclosure include an environment with user interface software interacting with a software application to provide gesture operations for a display of a device.” Abstract. Appeal 2015-007394 Application 13/221,836 Claim 22 is illustrative of the claimed invention and reads as follows: 22. A machine readable non-transitory medium storing one or more programs for execution by one or more processing units of a data processing system, the one or more programs including instructions for: displaying two or more windows of an application; receiving an event; determining whether the event is a hand event that is based on a user input that includes one or more input points touching a display of the system or is a system level event that is not a hand event; and in accordance with a determination that the event is a hand event based on a user input, routing the event to a window that received the user input and routing the event from the window to an appropriate control of the application by calling a mouse function or a gesture function for processing the event, wherein the window is a respective window of the two or more displayed windows of the application. THE REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 22—27, 29-34, 36, and 38-43 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Wright (US 2007/0291009 Al; published Dec. 20, 2007), Tsushima (US 6,035,343; published Mar. 7, 2000), and Berson (US 2004/0210847 Al; published Oct. 21, 2004). Final Act. 2-14. The Examiner rejected claims 28, 35 and 44 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Wright, Tsushima, Berson, and Hudson (US 2006/0242607 Al; published Oct. 26, 2006). Final Act. 14—15. The Examiner rejected claim 37 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Wright, Tsushima, Berson, and Mahesh (US 2008/0114614 Al; published May 15, 2008). Final Act. 16. 2 Appeal 2015-007394 Application 13/221,836 The Examiner rejected claims 45, 47, and 49 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Wright, Tsushima, Berson, and O’Donoghue (US 2006/0026676 Al; published Feb. 2, 2006). Final Act. 16—17. The Examiner rejected claims 46, 48, and 50 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Wright, Tsushima, Berson, and Foxlin (US 2006/0284792 Al; Dec. 21, 2006). Final Act. 18-19. ANAFYSIS The Obviousness Rejection Based on Wright, Tsushima, and Berlin Claims 22—27, 29—24, 36, and 38—43 Based on the record before us, we are persuaded of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claims 22—27, 29—34, 36, and 38—43 as unpatentable over Wright, Tsushima, and Berlin. Appellant asserts that the combination of Wright, Tsushima, and Berlin fails to teach or suggest “determining whether the event is a hand event that is based on a user input that includes one or more input points touching a display of the system or is a system level event that is not a hand event,” as recited in claim 22. App. Br. 13—16; Reply Br. 6—10. We understand this limitation to require the processor to be capable of making a determination of whether a received event is a hand event, i.e. a hand touch, or in the alternative is a system level event that is not hand event, e.g. a keyboard entry. See Ex parte Schulhauser, No. 2013-007847 (PTAB Apr. 28,2016). Although we agree with the Examiner that Wright discloses a hand event as well as a system level event (see, e.g., Final Act. 3 (citing Wright | 45)), the Examiner insufficiently explains how Wright determines between 3 Appeal 2015-007394 Application 13/221,836 these two events or why it would have been obvious to modify the teachings of Wright to make a determination between these two types of events. For example, the Examiner relies on paragraph 122 of Wright which describes that “[i]f no finger [i.e. no hand event] is detected, the operation 701 is repeated until one is detected.” We agree with Appellant that Simply determining whether the event is a hand event or not, as asserted by the Examiner, is distinct from, and does not teach or suggest, the claimed feature. “Determining whether the event is a hand event... or is a system level event...” [,] as recited in claim 22[,] requires a classification of the event into one of the two categories, a hand event and a system level event. Reply Br. 10; see also App. Br. 14 (“[determining the absence of a finger input does not. . . suggest that ‘the event’ is a system level event.”); Reply Br. 11. Further, while Wright describes system level events, these events, such as “the inputs to buttons, light emitting diodes, and other user interface devices (e.g., a mouse, a keyboard, or other functional keys that do not require capacitance sensing)[,] may be processed without determining whether the event is a hand event or is a system level event.” Reply Br. 12. As such, we are persuaded that the Examiner has not established that the combination of Wright, Tsushima, and Berlin teaches or suggests “determining whether the event is a hand event that is based on a user input that includes one or more input points touching a display of the system or is a system level event that is not a hand event,” as recited in claim 22. Accordingly, we do not sustain the obviousness rejection of independent claim 22, as well as independent claims 29 and 38, which recite similar limitations, and dependent claims 23—27, 30-34, 36, and 39-43. 4 Appeal 2015-007394 Application 13/221,836 The Remaining Obviousness Rejections Claims 28, 35, 37, and 44—50 Each of claims 28, 35, 37, 44—50 depend from one of independent claims 22, 29, and 38. While the Examiner cites additional prior art references in rejecting these claims, the additional cited prior art references do not cure the deficiencies of the rejection of independent claims 22, 29, and 38. As such, for the reasons discussed above, we do not sustain the remaining obviousness rejections. DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 22—50. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation