12127101 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 6, 2012)

Ex Parte Duri et al

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesJul 6, 2012

12127101 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 6, 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. 12/127,101 05/27/2008 Sastry S. Duri YOR920040182US2 7845 7590 07/06/2012 Ryan, Mason & Lewis, LLP Suite 205 1300 Post Road Fairfield, CT 06824 EXAMINER BOVEJA, NAMRATA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3682 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/06/2012 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 SASTRY S. DURI, JEFFREY G. ELLIOTT, JENNIFER C. LAI, XUAN LIU, PAUL A. MOSKOWITZ, JUNG-MU TANG, TODD C. WERDEN, and DANNY CHANG-YONG WONG ____________ Appeal 2011-000859 Application 12/127,101 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before: JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and MICHAEL W. KIM, Administrative Patent Judges. KIM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-000859 Application 12/127,101 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 1-251. We have jurisdiction to review the case under 35 U.S.C. §§ 134 and 6 (2002). The claimed invention relates to techniques for presenting personalized information, such as personalized pricing, messages and safety warnings, to consumers in a retail environment (Spec. 1:10-13). Claim 1, reproduced below, is further illustrative of the claimed subject matter. 1. A method for determining a price of a product for a customer, comprising: obtaining a unique identifier of said product from an RFID tag of said product; obtaining a unique identifier of said customer from an RFID tag of said customer; determining a personalized price for said product in physical proximity to said customer, said personalized price providing a discount from a regular price, wherein said physical proximity is determined based on said customer RFID tag and said product RFID tag being within a field of the same RFID reader. Claims 1-13 and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Loof (US 6,507,279 B2, iss. Jan. 14, 2003) in view of Ogasawara (US 6,513,015 B2, iss. Jan. 28, 2003) and Official Notice; and claims 14-22, 24, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Loof in view of Treyz (US 6,587,835 B1, iss. Jul. 1, 2003), Ogasawara, and Official Notice. We REVERSE. 1 Appellants assert that they are only appealing the rejections of claims 1, 11-14, and 22-24 (App. Br. 2, 5-10). However, because Appellants appeal the rejections of all pending independent claims 1, 14, and 23-25, we will treat this as an appeal of all pending claims 1-25. Appeal 2011-000859 Application 12/127,101 3 ANALYSIS We are persuaded the Examiner erred in asserting that combinations of references including Loof and Ogasawara renders obvious “wherein said physical proximity is determined based on said customer RFID tag and said product RFID tag being within a field of the same RFID reader,” as recited in independent claim 1 (App. Br. 5-8; Reply Br. 2-6). Independent claims 14 and 23-25 recite similar aspects. The Examiner combines the customer cell phone or PDA of Loof with the RF antenna and transmitter/receiver circuit of Ogasawara to render obvious “the customer cell phone or PDA having a RFID tag” used to track the customer (Exam’r’s Ans. 4-5, 14-15). However, the RF antenna and transmitter/receiver circuits are not RFID tags, as column 15, lines 31-39 of Ogasawara discloses that the RF antenna and transmitter/receiver circuit reads the customer ID number from the customer ID card. In other words, while the customer in Ogasawara has an RFID tag, the RFID tag is separate from the RF antenna and transmitter/receiver circuit of Ogasawara. And because the RF antenna and transmitter/receiver circuit reads the customer RFID tags, they cannot be the RFID tags themselves, as asserted by the Examiner. Accordingly, because the Examiner has not established a proper case of prima facie obviousness, we cannot sustain this rejection. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-25 is REVERSED. REVERSED Appeal 2011-000859 Application 12/127,101 4 hh