11139204 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 30, 2012)

Ex Parte Chadha

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesApr 30, 2012

11139204 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 30, 2012)

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. 11/139,204 05/26/2005 Lovleen Chadha 2454.1134 9852 21171 7590 04/30/2012 STAAS & HALSEY LLP SUITE 700 1201 NEW YORK AVENUE, N.W. WASHINGTON, DC 20005 EXAMINER UDDIN, MOHAMMED R ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2167 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/30/2012 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 ____________ BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES ____________ Ex parte LOVLEEN CHADHA ____________ Appeal 2009-012969 Application 11/139,204 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before MARC S. HOFF, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judges. KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appeal 2009-012969 Application 11/139,204 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant’s claimed invention is a method and apparatus for receiving, viewing, and editing a file using a wireless communication device (Spec. ¶ [0001]). Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A method for a wireless communication device, comprising: querying an external device for a file; receiving, by the wireless communication device in response to the querying, metadata associated with and descriptive of attributes of the file from the external device and not the-file itself, the metadata including layout information and placeholders for objects of the file; and generating a preview image of the file based only on the metadata; and displaying the preview image on a display of the wireless communication device. REJECTIONS and REFERENCES The Examiner rejected claims 1-4, 7-14, and 17-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Smethers (U.S. Patent No. 6,560,640 B2 (filed Jan. 22, 1999)) and Paatero (WO 03/017077 A1 (filed Aug. 16, 2002)). The Examiner rejected claims 5, 6, 15, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Smethers and Tran (U. S. Patent No. 6,157,935 (filed Dec. 17, 1996)). Appeal 2009-012969 Application 11/139,204 3 ANALYSIS Appellant contends Smethers does not teach a wireless communication device receiving metadata associated with and descriptive of attributes of a file from an external device and not the file itself. Rather, Appellant asserts Smethers discloses “receiving a data file and metadata associated with that data file in response to a request for a data (e.g., document) file.” (App. Br. 6). Appellant then asserts Paatero discloses a description of one or more skin files and “not a request for the skin file itself” (App. Br. 7). The Examiner finds Smethers discloses all of the claim limitations but does not explicitly disclose generating a preview image of a file based only on metadata (Ans. 4-6). The Examiner then relies on Paatero for teaching this limitation (Ans. 6). The Examiner also finds Paatero discloses a “user may then ask for a description of one or more of the skin data files, and/or a preview data file of one or more of the available skins” (Ans. 19; Paatero, p. 18, ll. 12-14). We agree with the Examiner’s findings and conclusions and adopt them as our own. Specifically, Appellant has failed to present substantive arguments supported with specific factual evidence of sufficient character and weight to persuade us of error regarding the Examiner’s legal conclusion of obviousness for these claims. Further, Appellant argues the references individually and contends there is no suggestion in Smethers or Paatero of “receiving metadata associated with a file and not the file itself from an eternal[sic] device in reply to a query for the file” (App. Br. 8). However, the Examiner relies on the combined teachings of Smethers and Paatero and what the combined teachings would have suggested to one of ordinary skill Appeal 2009-012969 Application 11/139,204 4 in the art (Ans. 19). One cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097(Fed. Cir. 1986). Thus, we find claims 1-4, 7-14, and 17-20, and claims 5, 6, 15, and 16 not separately argued, obvious over the collective teachings of the cited references.1 DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-20 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv)(2010). AFFIRMED llw 1 Claims 5, 6, 15, and 16 were presented under a separate heading, however the arguments provided rely on those arguments presented with respect to claims 1 and 11 (App. Br. 8).