Ex Parte Ganesh

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 14, 2011

10974073 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 14, 2011)

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.
10/974,073 10/27/2004 Arul Ganesh H0006303 5198
7590 06/15/2011
Honeywell International Inc.
Law Dept. AB2
101 Columbia Road
Morristown, NJ 07962
EXAMINER
PATEL, NIMESH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2617
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/15/2011 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 ARUL GANESH
____________

Appeal 2009-008363
Application 10/974,073
Technology Center 2600
____________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, MARC S. HOFF, and
THOMAS S. HAHN, Administrative Patent Judges.

RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Final Rejection of
claims 1-20, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

Appeal 2009-008363
Application 10/974,073

2
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed July 2, 2008), the Answer (mailed
September 2, 2008), and the Reply Brief (filed October 29, 2008) for the
respective details.

Appellant’s Invention
Appellant’s invention relates to a wireless sensor network having a
plurality of communicating nodes that receive sensor data from a sensor.
Upon receipt of a query specifying a set of events of interest, a producer
node identifies when each event of interest occurs and, when that event of
interest occurs, transmits event data to a consumer node. See generally
Spec. ¶ [0010].

Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1. A wireless sensor network comprising:
a plurality of nodes that communicate over wireless
communication links, wherein at least one of the plurality of nodes receives
sensor data from a sensor;
wherein the wireless sensor network is queried by specifying a
set of events of interest; and
wherein for each event of interest included in the set of events
of interest, a producer node included in the plurality of nodes identifies when
that event of interest occurs and, when that event of interest occurs,
transmits event data related to that event of interest to a consumer node
included in the plurality of nodes;

Appeal 2009-008363
Application 10/974,073

3
wherein the wireless sensor network further comprises a data
management stack that comprises a plurality of layers, wherein the plurality
of layers comprises an execution layer that executes on each producer node
included in the plurality of nodes; and
wherein for each event of interest included in the set of events
of interest, the execution layer executing on the producer node for that event
of interest identifies when that event of interest occurs.

The Examiner’s Rejections
The Examiner’s Answer cites the following prior art references:
Petite US 6,437,692 B1 Aug. 20, 2002
Warrior US 2005/0057370 A1 Mar. 17, 2005
(filed Sep. 17, 2003)
Elliott US 7,020,501 B1 Mar. 28, 2006
(filed Nov. 30, 2001)

Que, Practical Cisco Routers,
http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/0789721031, retrieved 5/2/2007,
pp. 1-8, August 25, 1999.

Claims 1-9, 12-16, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Elliott in view of Que.
Claims 1 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Petite in view of Que.
Claims 10, 11, 17, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Elliott in view of Que and Warrior.

Appeal 2009-008363
Application 10/974,073

4
ANALYSIS
The Elliott reference
Appellant’s arguments with respect to the obviousness rejection of
independent claims 1 and 14 focus on the contention that Elliott does not
disclose an event-based system as claimed. In particular, Appellant argues
(App. Br. 8-9; Reply Br. 1-2) that Elliot has no teaching or suggestion of the
identification by a node of when an event of interest occurs, nor any
transmission of event data when the event of interest occurs. According to
Appellant, the system described by Elliott is a schedule-based system in
which the node sensors communicate their measurements at specific
scheduled points in time, in contrast to transmission when an event of
interest occurs as claimed.
We agree with Appellant. As argued by Appellant, the sensor
measurements in Elliott transmit event data at pre-scheduled times
regardless of whether an event has occurred or not and, at other times, the
sensors are powered off to conserve power (col. 1, ll. 55-60, col. 3, ll. 15-18,
and col. 9, ll. 44-57). We also find no basis for the Examiner’s finding (Ans.
4, 26, and 27) that Elliott’s discussion (col. 3, ll. 53-67) of the various types
of sensing devices establishes a sensor “priority” in which some sensors will
transmit event data immediately after detection of an event.
Further, we note that the Examiner (Ans. 5) has relied upon Figures
10.1 and 10.2 of the Que reference for a teaching of a sensor network having
a data management layer stack. Such a teaching, however, does not
overcome the deficiencies of Elliot in disclosing an event-based sensor
network as claimed.
Appeal 2009-008363
Application 10/974,073

5
For the above reasons, we do not sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) rejection, based on the combination of Elliott and Que, of
independent claims 1 and 14, nor of claims 2-9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, and 20
dependent thereon. We also do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness
rejection of dependent claims 10, 11, 17, and 18 in which the Warrior
reference has been added to the combination of Elliott and Que to address
the “subscriber” and “producer” entity features of the rejected claims. We
find nothing in the Warrior reference which overcomes the innate
deficiencies of Elliott and Que discussed supra.

The Petite reference
We also do not sustain the Examiner’s separate obviousness rejection
of independent claims 1 and 14 based on Petite and Que. We agree with
Appellant (App. Br. 12-15; Reply Br. 3) that the Examiner has not explained
how the cited portions of Petite (col. 3, ll. 1-50 and col. 6, 24-30) teach the
claimed querying of a network “by specifying a set of events of interest” as
claimed.
We further agree with Appellant that, to whatever extent Petite’s
reference to “service requests” (col. 6, l. 25-26) or the transmission of a
“ping” message (Fig. 12) may be considered a “query,” there is no
disclosure in Petite of determining when an event occurs, let alone
transmitting event data when an event occurs. Lastly, as with our discussion
of Elliott, we find nothing in the disclosure of Que which overcomes the
deficiencies of Petite in disclosing an event-based sensor network as
claimed.

Appeal 2009-008363
Application 10/974,073

6
CONCLUSION OF LAW
Based on the analysis above, we conclude that Appellants have shown
the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-20 for obviousness under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).

DECISION
The Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 1-20, all of the
appealed claims, is reversed.

REVERSED

kis