Ex Parte ElendDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 14, 201914460552 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 14, 2019) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/460,552 08/15/2014 65913 7590 05/16/2019 Intellectual Property and Licensing NXPB.V. 411 East Plumeria Drive, MS41 SAN JOSE, CA 95134 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Bernd Elend 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 81644291US01 7767 EXAMINER DALEY, CHRISTOPHER ANTHONY ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2184 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/16/2019 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): ip.department.us@nxp.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BERND ELEND1 Appeal2018-008014 Application 14/460,552 Technology Center 2100 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and SCOTT RAEVSKY, Administrative Patent Judges. RAEVSKY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-14, all the pending claims in the present application (see Claims Appendix). We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 Appellant does not identify any real party in interest, but the Applicant is NXP B.V. See Application Data Sheet filed July 19, 2017, at 4. 1 Appeal2018-008014 Application 14/460,552 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant's invention generally relates to a Controller Area Network (CAN) device that emulates an error management protocol of a classic CAN controller. See Abstract; Spec ,-J 2. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A Controller Area Network (CAN) device comprising: a transmit data (TXD) input interface; a TXD output interface; a receive data (RXD) input interface; an RXD output interface; a traffic control system connected between the TXD input and output interfaces and between the RXD input and output interfaces, and configured to: detect the presence of classic CAN traffic on the RXD input interface; and if the presence of classic CAN traffic is detected on the RXD input interface, emulate an error management protocol of a classic CAN controller in response to signals received on the TXD input interface. App. Br. 7 (Claims Appendix). Appellant appeals the following rejection: Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Hell (US 2013/0294460 Al, pub. Nov. 7, 2013) and Bosch, "CAN with Flexible Data-Rate" ("Bosch," pub. Apr. 17, 2012). Final Act. 2. We review the appealed rejection for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). 2 Appeal2018-008014 Application 14/460,552 ANALYSIS Appellant contends Hell and Bosch fail to teach or suggest claim l's "detect the presence of classic CAN traffic on the RXD input interface and if the presence of classic CAN traffic is detected on the RXD input interface, emulate an error management protocol of a classic CAN controller in response to signals received on the TXD input interface." App. Br. 4. Specifically, Appellant contends, Bosch "[p ]age 23 discusses Message Validation and Message Filtering and not the claim feature cited above." Id. Appellant further contends "a classic CAN transceiver will not emulate [an] error message when classic CAN traffic arrives at [an] RXD interface because a classic CAN transceiver would actually expect classic CAN traffic." Id. The Examiner finds "classic CAN error detection is clearly taught on page 23 [ of Bosch]. There are five ( 5) error types that can be detected, and the triggering the form[-Jerror as classical CAN is NOT the CANDF protocol." Ans. 10. The Examiner further finds, "[p]age 23 is the error signaling management as stated in section 6.2, being able to detect five ( 5) error types. Thus the form-error status is realized when a classical CAN (non-CANDF protocol) signal is present." Id. We agree with the Examiner. Bosch explains that CAN FD is backwards compatible with classic CAN. See Bosch 1. For example, "[t]he CAN FD frame format has been defined so that messages in CAN frame format and in CAN FD frame format can coexist within the same network." Id. Bosch also "requir[es] that a CAN FD implementation be compatible with this CAN FD specification as well as with the BOSCH CAN Specification 2.0." Id. Thus, when Bosch discloses detecting and handling errors (id. at 23), Bosch 3 Appeal2018-008014 Application 14/460,552 teaches or suggests claim l's error management protocol of a classic CAN controller. Appellant also contends, "[t]he Office completely disregarded the conditional terms in the ... claim ... and that a classic CAN transceiver would not send error when it actually receives classic CAN traffic." App. Br. 5. We disagree. The Examiner cites Bosch, page 23, as "disclos[ing] if the presence of classic CAN is detected ... in response to signals received on the TXD input interface." Final Act. 3 (emphasis added). Further, the Examiner finds "the form-error status is realized when a classical CAN (non- CANDF protocol) signal is present." Ans. 10 (emphasis added). And Bosch discloses, "[w]henever a CRC-ERROR is detected, transmission of an ERROR FLAG starts ... unless an Error Flag for another condition has already been started." Bosch 23 ( emphasis added). Thus, the Office did not completely disregard the conditional terms in the claim, contrary to Appellant's contention. On Reply, Appellant raises several new arguments, including new arguments attempting to distinguish Hell. Reply Br. 2-9. In addition, Appellant raises a new argument over Bosch, asserting Bosch "does not teach or suggest any action that is taken by a CAN FD controller 'in response to signals received on the TXD input interface,' at least because a CAN FD controller a[ s] taught by CANFD (Bosch) does not include a TXD input interface." Id. at 8. Appellant has not explained why these arguments, which Appellant could have raised in the Appeal Brief, were not raised therein, given that the Examiner's statement of rejection for the claims in the Answer appears to be substantially the same as, if not identical to, the statement of the rejection in the Final Rejection. We therefore do not 4 Appeal2018-008014 Application 14/460,552 consider these new arguments. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.4l(b )(2); see also In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (noting that an argument not first raised in the Brief to the Board is waived on appeal); Ex parte Nakashima, No. 2009-001280, 2010 WL 191183, at *3-*6 (BPAI 2010) ( explaining that arguments and evidence not timely presented in the principal Brief will not be considered when filed in a Reply Brief, absent a showing of good cause explaining why the argument could not have been presented in the Principal Brief). Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1. Appellant also raises additional new arguments on Reply for several dependent claims, including claims 2-9. Reply Br. 9-11. For similar reasons stated above, we do not consider these new arguments, which Appellant waived by not raising them in the Appeal Brief. Thus, we also sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 2-9. Appellant's arguments regarding the rejection of independent claim 10 rely on the same arguments as for claim 1, and Appellant does not argue separate patentability for claim 10' s dependent claims except for the first time on Reply.2 See App. Br. 5; Reply Br. 9-11. We therefore also sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 10-14. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). 2 We note also that Appellant implicitly relies on a conditional element in claim 10, namely, "if the presence of classic CAN traffic is detected." See App. Br. 5 ("Claim 10 also includes a similar claim feature."). A conditional limitation in a method claim is typically not limiting. See Ex parte Schulhauser, No. 2013-007847, 2016 WL 6277792, at *4-5 (PTAB Apr. 28, 2016) (precedential) (holding conditional limitations in a method claim not limiting under a broadest reasonable interpretation, and thus the Examiner need not apply prior art for the non-limiting elements). 5 Appeal2018-008014 Application 14/460,552 DECISION We affirm the Examiner's§ 103 rejection of claims 1-14. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § l .136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation