Ex Parte Finke-Anlauff et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 21, 201410715187 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 21, 2014) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte ANDREA FINKE-ANLAUFF, ANDREAS MYKA, LAURA HUHTELA-BREMER, YOUNGHEE JUNG, OLOF SCHYBERGSON, VESA METSATAHTI, ANNIKA MACKE, TOMI HAKARI, CHRISTIAN LINDHOLM, and OLLI OKSANEN ____________________ Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, THU A. DANG, and LARRY J. HUME, Administrative Patent Judges. DANG, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 2 I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-22, 25-37, and 40-47. Claims 3, 23, 24, 38, and 39 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. A. INVENTION According to Appellants, the invention relates to digital communication and, more specifically, to an application for providing digital communication devices with a media diary that calendars events and associates digital media items with calendar views (Spec. 1, ll. 3-5). B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM Claim 1 is exemplary: 1. A product comprising: a computer readable storage medium; and computer-readable program instructions embodied in the medium, the computer-readable program instructions including: first instructions for receiving manual entry of events and generating a calendar view that represents time in calendar format and visually associates events with respective periods of time, the calendar view including at least one manually entered past event and at least one manually entered event scheduled at a future time; and second instructions for generating a media view that provides access to digital media files and associates digital media files with a period of time, wherein at least one of the events is created and represented in the calendar view independent of any digital media files, and Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 3 wherein the first and second instructions operate concurrently to generate a timeline view that combines the calendar view and the media view such that multiple media file representations are enabled to be displayed in a corresponding period of time segment of the timeline view along with a text identification of an event associated with the multiple media file representations. C. REJECTIONS The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Vronay US 2003/0156138 A1 Aug. 21, 2003 Hullot US 2004/0109025 A1 Jun. 10, 2004 Adcock US 2004/0125150 A1 Jul. 1, 2004 Bob Temple, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2000 (Que Publishing, 1999) (“Temple”). Claims 1, 2, 4-22, 26-37, and 40-47 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vronay, Temple, and Adcock. Claim 25 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vronay, Temple, Adcock, and Hullot. II. ISSUES The main issue before us is whether the Examiner has erred in determining that the combination of Vronay, Temple, and Adcock teaches or would have suggested a product comprising computer-readable program “instructions” including: 1) first instructions “for receiving manual entry of events and generating a calendar view . . . , the calendar view including at least one Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 4 manually entered past event and at least one manually entered event scheduled at a future time” and second instructions “for generating a media view”; and 2) wherein the first and second instructions operate concurrently “to generate a timeline view . . . such that multiple media file representations are enabled to be displayed in a corresponding period of time segment . . . along with a text identification of an event associated [therewith]” (claim 1, emphasis added). III. FINDINGS OF FACT The following Findings of Fact (FF) are shown by a preponderance of the evidence. Vronay 1. Vronay discloses a calendar- based user interface system, wherein Figure 11 is reproduced below: Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 5 Figure 11 is an illustration of a “when” segment (p. 8, [0064]), wherein detailed results list the identified results specifically for each day (p. 8, [0065]). Temple 2. Temple discloses entering the time and date for an appointment, wherein the current calendar month and time fields are displayed for selection, and wherein events occurring in the past are indicated (p. 198). Adcock 3. Adcock discloses calendar-based interfaces for browsing and manipulation of digital images, wherein Figure 7 is reproduced below: Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 6 Figure 7 discloses a graphical user interface (GUI) 700 wherein event identifiers 711 identifies that the digital images associated with the graphical object 712 are associated with a particular event and pop-up window 713 identifies that five of those digital images are represented by graphical object 712 (p. 3, [0040]). IV. ANALYSIS Claims 1, 2, 4-22, 26-37, and 40-47 Appellants contend Vronay “does not require direct user input” and thus “does not contemplate ‘manual entry of events’” (App. Br. 7). Although Appellants concede Temple discloses manual entry of events, Appellants contend “Temple shows entry of a past event” and not future Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 7 events (App. Br. 8). Appellants then contend, “Adcock never provides any text identification of events associated with multiple media file representations displayed in a corresponding period of time segment of the timeline view” (App. Br. 9). Although Appellants contend Vronay, Temple, and Adcock do not disclose the claimed invention (App. Br. 7-9), the rejection was made under § 103 as being obvious over combination of the references. The test for obviousness is not what each figure of the references individually shows but what the combined teachings would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). To determine whether the combination of Vronay, Temple, and Adcock discloses or would have suggested the claimed invention, we give the claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). As an initial matter, we note that claim 1 merely recites a “product” comprising a “medium” and “instructions” embodied in the medium, wherein the instructions include “first instructions for receiving . . . and generating” and “second instructions for generating.” That is, product claim 1 merely comprises a medium and instructions embodied therein “for” receiving entry of events and generating various views. We find such “for receiving” and “for generating” language to represents a statement of intended use of the “instructions” embodied in the computer-readable storage medium of the claimed product, which does not limit the claim. Particularly, an intended use will not limit the scope of the claim because it merely defines a context in which the invention operates. Boehringer Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 8 Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. v. Schering-Plough Corp., 320 F.3d 1339, 1345 (Fed. Cir. 2003). We also note that claim 1 does not recite any manual entering of events but rather the first instructions are intended for receiving an “entry” and for generating a calendar “view” that includes manually entered past and future events. Similarly, claim 1 does not recite any accessing of digital media files, but rather the second instructions are intended for generating a media “view” that provides access to the digital media files. Further, claim 1 does not recite any displaying of media file representations but rather the first and second instructions together are intended to generate a timeline “view” “such that” media file representations are “enabled to be” displayed. Under a broad but reasonable interpretation, claim 1 merely requires: 1) first instructions intended for receiving manual entry (input data) and generating a view (display data) that includes certain information, such as information representing time, information providing certain visual association, and information including certain manually entered/input data; and 2) second instructions intended for generating a view (display data) that includes certain information such as information providing access to various files. Similarly, claim 1 merely requires first and second instructions are intended to generate a timeline view (display data) that includes such information as the combined calendar view and media view “such that” multiple media files (data) are “enabled” for the intended purpose of being displayed. Thus, we conclude the recited “manual entry of events” is merely the type of data intended to be received, “calendar view,” “media view,” and Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 9 “timeline view” are merely the type of data generated for display (to a human viewer), and the certain information included in the received entry or generated views are merely non-functional descriptive material intended for human perception. The informational content of non-functional descriptive material is not entitled to weight in the patentability analysis. See Ex parte Nehls, 88 USPQ2d 1883, 1887-90 (BPAI 2008) (precedential); Ex parte Curry, 84 USPQ2d 1272 (BPAI 2005) (informative), aff’d, No. 2006-1003 (Fed. Cir. June 12, 2006) (Rule 36); Ex parte Mathias, 84 USPQ2d 1276 (BPAI 2005) (informative), aff’d, 191 Fed. Appx. 959 (Fed. Cir. 2006). See also MPEP § 2111.05, Eighth Edition, Rev. 9 (Aug. 2012) (“[W]here the claim as a whole is directed conveying a message or meaning to a human reader independent of the intended computer system, and/or the computer- readable medium merely serves as a support for information or data, no functional relationship exists.”). Here, the informational content of the received “entry” data or generated “calendar view,” “media view,” and “timeline view” that are provided and displayed is entitled to no weight in the patentability analysis. Thus, we conclude that claim 1 merely requires a “product” comprising a “medium” and “instructions” therein, wherein the “instructions” are intended for receiving data and generating data for display. Nevertheless, we find no error in the Examiner’s finding that Vronay, Temple, and Adcock would have at least suggested the claimed features (Ans. 4-7). Vronay discloses a calendar-based user interface wherein detailed results list the identified results specifically for each day (FF 1). We find no error with the Examiner’s finding that Vronay discloses “standard calendar Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 10 operation” which includes “manually adding user-specified appointments for a future date” (Ans. 32). That is, Vronay discloses a calendar view which includes events scheduled (and thus manually entered by a user sometime prior to the view), wherein, for a given date (for example, February 22), events that occurred in the past (occurring on a date prior to the given date on the calendar, such as February 13) and events to take place in future time (will occur at a date after the given date, such as February 25) are shown (FF 1). Further, Temple discloses entering the time and date for an appointment, wherein events occurring in the past are indicated (FF 2). We find no error with the Examiner’s finding that Temple discloses users entering “the date and time for an appointment, which may be a past date” (Ans. 33). Additionally, Adcock discloses a graphical user interface in a week view with media file associated therewith (FF 3). We find no error with the Examiner’s finding that Adcock discloses “[i]mages for an event may be grouped together and associated with an event identifier” wherein “the pop- up window may be considered a text identification of an event associated with multiple media file representation” (Ans. 34 (citation and emphasis omitted)). Thus, we agree with the Examiner that the combined teachings would at least have suggested the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art. Merck, 800 F.2d at 1097. We conclude that it would have been well within the skill of one skilled in the art to disclose all of the selected information concurrently. Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 11 We find no error with the ultimate legal conclusion of obviousness in combining the teachings of Temple to provide “flexibility in scheduling events” (Ans. 33) and to combine the teachings of Adcock to “allow users to more efficiently browse images” (Ans. 35). The Supreme Court has determined that the conclusion of obviousness can be based on the interrelated teachings of multiple patents, the effects of demands known to the design community or present in the marketplace, and the background knowledge possessed by a person having ordinary skill in the art. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). The skilled artisan would “be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle” since the skilled artisan is “a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” Id. at 420-21. Given the breadth of Appellants’ claims, we are not persuaded, and Appellants have presented no persuasive evidence that displaying past manual entries as taught by Temple and displaying text identification associated with media files as taught by Adcock in the timeline view of Vronay was “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art.” Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418). Accordingly, we find Appellants have not shown the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 over Vronay, Temple, and Adcock. Appellants do not provide arguments for independent claims 20, 22, 26, 32, and 37, or for claims 2, 4-19, 21, 27-31, 33-36, and 40-47 depending from claims 1, 20, 26, 32, and 37 respectively, separate from those of claim 1 (App. Br. 7-10). Thus, claims 2, 4-22, 26-37, and 40-47 fall with claim 1. Appeal 2011-008083 Application 10/715,187 12 Claim 25 As for dependent claim 25, Appellants merely contend, “Hullot fails to cure the above noted deficiencies” of Vronay, Temple, and Adcock (App. Br. 10). However, as discussed above, we find no deficiencies in the Examiner’s reliance of Vronay, Temple, and Adcock. Thus, we also affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claim 25 over Vronay, Temple, and Adcock in further view of Hullot. V. CONCLUSION AND DECISION The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 2, 4-22, 25-37, and 40-47 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are 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). AFFIRMED msc Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation