Ex Parte Chen et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 21, 201613481997 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 21, 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. 13/481,997 05/29/2012 LI-JU CHEN TW920110004US1_8150-0252 8205 73109 7590 12/23/2016 Cuenot, Forsythe & Kim, LLC 20283 State Road 7 Ste. 300 Boca Raton, EL 33498 EXAMINER JUSTUS, RALPH H ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2649 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/23/2016 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): ibmptomail@iplawpro.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte LI-JU CHEN, WEI-HSIANG HSIUNG, RICK M.F. WU, and MING-HSUN WU Appeal 2016-000812 Application 13/481,997 Technology Center 2600 Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, SHARON FENICK, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2016-000812 Application 13/481,997 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1—25, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. THE INVENTION The application is directed to “a method for triggering an event of interest in a mobile device based on communications established with nearby wireless devices.” (Spec. 13.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is exemplary: 1. A method for triggering an event of interest in a mobile device based on communications established with nearby wireless de vices, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a challenge of the event of interest; obtaining a corresponding expression of a combination key with reference to the event in response to the challenge; receiving an identified data of the wireless devices in vicinity of the mobile device; comparing the identified data with the expression to deter mine if the expression is a true value; and executing the event of interest in response to the true value. 1 Appellants identify IBM Corporation as the real party in interest. (See App. Br. 1.) 2 Appeal 2016-000812 Application 13/481,997 THE REFERENCES AND THE REJECTIONS Claims 1—25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Jung et al. (US 2007/0224938 Al; pub. Sept. 27, 2007); Palin et al. (US 2012/0289157 Al; pub. Nov. 15, 2012); Lin (US 2008/0261617 Al; pub. Oct. 23, 2008); and Ben Ayed et al. (US 2011/0215921 Al; pub. Sept. 8, 2011. (See Final Act. 4—9.) ANALYSIS In pertinent part, the claims require (a) “receiving a challenge of [an] event of interest,” (b) “obtaining a corresponding expression of a combination key with reference to the event in response to the challenge,” (c) “receiving an identified data of the wireless devices in vicinity of the mobile device,” and (d) “comparing the identified data with the expression to determine if the expression is a true value.” As described, by way of example, in the Specification: [T]he user creates a combination of different situations, such as a situation profile “Car”, according to a combination of different identified data received, such as “rapid changes of a coordinate data sent from a satellite, received by the mobile device 100 by means of the GPS function thereof, and related to the position of the mobile device 100” and “the device ID of a Bluetooth device, such as a Bluetooth enabled GPS, installed on the user’s car”, so as to create a combination key expression according to [“Earphone” AND (“Home” OR “Car”)] created by the user, such that the mobile device 100 can be unlocked automatically without a password entered by the user when confronted with a combination of situations, that is, (“Earphone” AND “Home”) OR (“Earphone” AND “Car”). (Spec. 133.) 3 Appeal 2016-000812 Application 13/481,997 In the Final Office Action, the Examiner found that “a ‘combination key’ corresponds to Lin’s ‘identification of external apparatuses disposed at different locations’ and an ‘expression’ of a combination key is the profile of locations and devices according to the different identified data received, i.e., the ‘logical structure’ of Lin that is then used to expedite connectivity.” (Final Act. 6, emphasis omitted.) Appellants argue the rejections are in error because the combination fails to teach or suggest “expression of a combination key,” as recited in claim 1. (See App. Br. 8—10.) We agree with Appellants. Lin teaches a “connecting method ... for quickly connecting to a plurality of external apparatuses.” (Lin 11.) “When one or more than one external apparatuses are found at a location, access codes of these external apparatuses are stored and these external apparatuses are classified in a set via tagging or location indicators of other data structures.” (Id. 123.) Then, “[w]ith the information carried by the location indicators, the network interface 121 and the processing device 123 now do not need to scan every coverable external apparatus” because “[w]hen one external apparatus is found, it is very possible that other external apparatuses once locate[d] at the same location of the found external apparatus are also available at the same location.” (Id. 126.) Essentially, Lin retains a record of devices at a particular location so that, if one is found, the others may be located without scanning for all potential devices. (See id. 128.) Initially, we note Appellant has not explicitly defined the term “combination key” in the Specification. Consistent with the Examiner’s analysis (Ans. 10), however, we determine “expression of a combination key” to require more than one “situation profile of locations and devices 4 Appeal 2016-000812 Application 13/481,997 along with identified data of the wireless device in the vicinity of the mobile device.” (Spec. 133.) We do not agree that Lin’s “profile of locations and devices according to the different identified data received, i.e., the ‘logical structure’ of Lin that is then used to expedite connectivity” (Ans. 9, emphasis omitted) is “an expression of a combination key” according to this interpretation. The profile is a list of devices that may be found at a particular location, not an expression that can be evaluated “to determine if the expression is a true value, such as, for example, “(‘Earphone’ AND ‘Home’) OR (‘Earphone’ AND ‘Car’).” (Ans. 8, citing Spec. 133.) Because we find the Examiner has not established a prima facie case of unpatentability, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 1—25. DECISION The rejections of claims 1—25 are reversed. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation