Ex Parte Bruns

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jun 25, 2013

10309409 - (R) (P.T.A.B. Jun. 25, 2013)

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.
10/309,409 12/02/2002 Arno Diego Bruns 6741P015 4934
45062 7590 06/25/2013
SAP/BSTZ
BLAKELY SOKOLOFF TAYLOR & ZAFMAN
1279 Oakmead Parkway
Sunnyvale, CA 94085-4040
EXAMINER
ADE, OGER GARCIA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3687
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/25/2013 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE 1
___________ 2
3
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS 4
AND INTERFERENCES 5
___________ 6
7
Ex parte ARNO DIEGO BRUNS 8
___________ 9
10
Appeal 2010-002973 11
Application 10/309,409 12
Technology Center 3600 13
___________ 14
15
16
Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, HUBERT C. LORIN, and 17
ANTON W. FETTING, Administrative Patent Judges. 18
FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge. 19
DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING 20
21
Appeal 2010-002973
Application 10/309,409

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE 1
This is a decision on rehearing in Appeal 2010-002973. We have 2
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). 3
Requests for Rehearing are limited to matters misapprehended or 4
overlooked by the Board in rendering the original decision. 37 C.F.R. 5
§ 41.52. 6
The panel acknowledges and regrets the delay in taking up this request. 7
The panel was first made aware of this request June 19, 2013. 8
ISSUES ON REHEARING 9
Appellant raises a single issue in the Request for Rehearing: 10
Appellant believes that the Board has misapprehended the 11
meaning of “line item” and the distinction between splitting line 12
items and splitting an order generally. 13
Request 1. 14
ANALYSIS 15
We found in our Decision that claims 1-30 were improperly rejected 16
under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph; claims 1-6, 8-16, 18-26, and 28-17
30 were properly rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by 18
Bloom; claims 7, 17, and 27 were improperly rejected under 35 U.S.C. 19
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Bloom; and a new ground of rejection was 20
entered against claims 7, 17, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as 21
unpatentable over Bloom. Decision 11. 22
Appeal 2010-002973
Application 10/309,409

3
Appellant contends the panel misapprehended the well known order-line 1
item-delivery hierarchy employed in MRP II software since the 1970’s. The 2
Appellant argues 3
the line item is still not split because the individual items in 4
Bloom are not divided between different deliveries. Thus, while 5
Bloom may teach that plural line items within an order may be 6
separated such that some of those line items are shipped in one 7
shipment and some of those line items are shipped in a separate 8
shipment, it does not teach or suggest that any individual line 9
item is split into multiple shipments. 10
Request 2. 11
Appellant’s argument is not commensurate with the scope of claim 1. 12
Claim 1 does not recite splitting a line item. Instead, claim 1 recites two 13
steps, viz, storing a criteria and generating deliveries. We found that Bloom 14
does both and this is not in dispute. 15
That the claim goes on to recite that the criteria that is stored is “for 16
splitting the line item into a plurality of deliveries, and a second criteria in a 17
computer,” does not alter the step, but only assigns an aspirational reason for 18
the criteria. The second step does refer back to the aspiration in “generating 19
the plurality of deliveries,” but Bloom generates a plurality of deliveries. 20
The claim does not recite that the generation of deliveries in the second step 21
necessarily arises from splitting a line item in the first step. 22
As it also happens, the criteria for splitting an order would frequently be 23
identical to criteria for splitting a line item, as splitting a line item is simply 24
a more specific instance of splitting an order. That is, the criteria employed 25
by Bloom anticipates the criteria that would frequently result in splitting a 26
line item. Again, it is the criteria that must be anticipated to support a 27
rejection, not the split. 28
Appeal 2010-002973
Application 10/309,409

4
Further, as the panel, found, 1
[a]lthough the Appellant argues that Bloom does not explicitly 2
state that the splitting of this order for picking and shipping is 3
the splitting of a line item, a person with ordinary skill in the art 4
would have understood that Bloom describes the ordering of an 5
item and that item would be represented as a line item in an 6
order. As such, Bloom is describing the splitting of that line 7
item in the order for picking and shipment based on the quantity 8
of the items in the order. 9
Decision 7. 10
The panel did not misapprehend the distinction between an order and a 11
line item as Appellant contends, but simply found that applying Bloom’s 12
process to inventories that could not immediately fulfill entire quantities 13
ordered necessarily resulted in split deliveries and therefore split line items. 14
CONCLUSION 15
Nothing in Appellant’s request has convinced us that we have 16
overlooked or misapprehended the meaning of “line item” as argued by 17
Appellant. Accordingly, we DENY the request to reverse the Examiner. 18
DECISION 19
To summarize, our decision is as follows: 20
 We have considered the REQUEST FOR REHEARING. 21
 We DENY the request that we reverse the Examiner as to claims 1-6, 22
8-16, 18-26, and 28-30, or that we withdraw the new ground of 23
rejection. 24
DENIED 25
mls 26