Ex Parte Burckart et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 13, 2018

14076206 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 13, 2018)

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.
14/076,206 11/09/2013 Erik J. Burckart RSW920130094U S1 (797) 4267
46320 7590
CRGO LAW
STEVEN M. GREENBERG
7900 Glades Road
SUITE 520
BOCA RATON, EL 33434
02/15/2018 EXAMINER
PAN, YONGJIA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2145
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/15/2018 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):
docketing@crgolaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ERIK J. BURCKART, MICHAEL P. ETGEN,
ANDREW J. IVORY, and DAVID M. STECHER
Appeal 2017-009014
Application 14/076,2061
Technology Center 2100
Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.
BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 4-10.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
RELATED PROCEEDINGS
Appellants identify Appeal 2017-008594 (“the ’594 Appeal”), which
is the subject appeal of Application 14/076,206 as a related appeal. App.
Br. 2. The ’594 Appeal is decided concurrently with the present appeal.
1 Appellants’ Brief (“App. Br.”) identifies International Business Machines
Corporation as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2.
2 Claims 1-3 were previously cancelled.
Appeal 2017-009014
Application 14/076,206
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to utilizing object cloning to enable nested
drag and drop operations within a graphical user interface. Spec. Abstract.
Claim 4, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
4. A graphical user interface (GUI) data processing
system comprising:
a host computer with memory and at least one processor;
an operating system executing in the memory of the host
computer;
an application hosted by the operating system and
providing a GUI with different objects displayed thereon; and,
a nested object drag and drop module coupled to the GUI,
the module comprising program code enabled upon execution in
the memory of the host computer to respond to a drag event in
the GUI by identifying an object amongst the objects in the GUI
associated with the drag event, by retrieving into the memory one
or more clones of other objects in the GUI that are nested in the
identified object, by generating an avatar for the identified object
and the one or more clones, and by moving a display of the avatar
from a source location of the drag event to a target location of a
drop event detected in the GUI of the application.
App. Br. 11 (Claims Appendix).
REJECTION
Claims 4-10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Anthony (US 2007/0061745 Al, published Mar. 15,
2007) and “Draggable with Droppable Clone” as shown in JSFiddle
(publicly available October 3, 2013 as evidence by Internet Wayback
Machine) (“JSFiddle”). Final Act. 2-8.
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Appeal 2017-009014
Application 14/076,206
ISSUES
Has the Examiner erred in finding Anthony and JSFiddle teach or
suggest “retrieving in memory one or more clones of other objects in the
GUI that are nested in the identified object,” as recited in independent claims
4 and 8?
ANALYSIS
In rejecting independent claims 4 and 8, the Examiner relies primarily
on Anthony. The Examiner finds Anthony teaches the claimed invention
except that “Anthony differs from the claims in that Anthony fails to teach
the objects retrieved from memory are clones of objects.” Final Act. 4. The
Examiner supplements the teachings of Anthony with those of JSFiddle,
finding “retrieving clones of objects for a drag and drop operation is taught
by JSFiddle.” Id. (citing JSFiddle source code). The Examiner concludes as
follows:
Since Anthony and JSFiddle teach a system and method for drag
and drop operations, it would have been obvious to one of skill[]
in the art to modify Anthony to include JSFiddle’s clones to
achieve the predictable result of replicating data for Anthony’s
drag and drop.
Id.
Appellants contend “Anthony and JSFiddle clearly lack all claimed
aspects of Appellants’ claims 4 and 8.” App. Br. 5. Appellants
acknowledge that Anthony’s “Figure 4 shows nested folders,” but Anthony’s
is deficient because “the folders are not clones of objects that are nested in
an object that has been associated with a drag event.” App. Br. 6.
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Appeal 2017-009014
Application 14/076,206
According to Appellants, the cited portions of Anthony are limited to
teaching simultaneous display of container objects (Anthony 32) and
dragging and dropping objects from various hierarchical levels in a GUI
(Anthony ^ 44). App. Br. 7. Appellants further argue the Examiner’s
additional reliance on JSFiddle does not account for the limitation “that are
nested in the identified object.” App. Br. 8. Finally, Appellants argue the
action of dragging and dropping nested folders, as taught by Anthony, “does
not account for the retrieval into memory of one or more clones of other
objects in a GUI that are nested in an identified object.” App. Br. 9.
We are not persuaded the Examiner has erred in concluding it would
have been obvious to combine Anthony and JSFiddle in the manner recited
in the independent claims. Essentially, Appellants’ position is that the
rejection is in error because Anthony does not teach “retrieving in memory
one or more clones of other objects in the GUI that are nested in the
identified object,” and JSFiddle also does not teach “retrieving in memory
one or more clones of other objects in the GUI that are nested in the
identified object.” This argument does not address the rejection made by the
Examiner; it attacks the references singly where the rejection is based on
their combined teachings.
The Examiner’s rejection finds that Anthony teaches retrieving into
memory nested objects associated with a drag and drop event. Ans. 7 (citing
Anthony 32, 44). The Examiner relies on JSFiddle to show that it was
known to retrieve clones of objects for a drag and drop operation. Taken
together, the Examiner concludes because it was known to use cloning in
drag and drop operations, it would have been obvious to add that
functionality to Anthony’s drag and drop events for nest objects. We find
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Appeal 2017-009014
Application 14/076,206
the Examiner’s findings and rationale well-supported by the evidence.
Appellants argue the cited paragraphs in Anthony teach only the use of
container objects and dragging and dropping from varying levels of
hierarchy. We disagree that the teachings are so limited because “[i]t is well
settled that a prior art reference is relevant for all that it teaches to those of
ordinary skill in the art.” In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1264 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
Here, given Anthony’s disclosure of nested objects and drag/drop
operations provided in paragraphs 32 and 44, we agree with the Examiner
that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have appreciated that
Anthony’s nested objects could be dragged/dropped within a GUI, and
would have further appreciated that in carrying out that process, the nested
objects would be retrieved into memory. Accordingly, we are not persuaded
the Examiner failed to map the claim language “that are nested in the
identified object” to the prior art, as Appellants have alleged. As a result, we
conclude the Examiner has not erred in rejecting independent claims 4 and 8
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), and we sustain the rejection of these claims.
Appellants do not present separate arguments for patentability of dependent
claims 5-7 and 9-10. As a result, the dependent claims fall with their
respective independent claims.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 4-10.
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Appeal 2017-009014
Application 14/076,206
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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