Ex Parte Gangitano

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Oct 22, 2002

08811827 (B.P.A.I. Oct. 22, 2002)

The opinion in support of the decision being entered today was not written
for publication and is not binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 15
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte GREG GANGITANO
____________
Appeal No. 2001-0605
Application No. 08/811,827
____________
HEARD: August 14, 2002
____________
Before THOMAS, JERRY SMITH, and RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent
Judges.
RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on the appeal from the final rejection of
claims 1-3 and 5-12, which are all of the claims pending in the
present application. Claim 4 has been canceled.
The claimed invention relates to the displaying on the monitor
of a satellite television receiver system a visual indication of
the received signal strength of a satellite television signal.
More particularly, the display signal is automatically generated
Appeal No. 2001-0605
Application No. 08/811,827
1 The Appeal Brief was filed October 29, 1999 (Paper No. 8). In
response to the Examiner’s Answer dated January 19, 2000, (Paper No. 9), a
Reply Brief was filed March 20, 2000 (Paper No. 10), which was acknowledged
and entered by the Examiner in the communication dated March 30, 2000 (Paper
No. 11).
2
whenever the received signal strength falls below a predetermined
threshold.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1. A home satellite television receiver, comprising:
circuitry configured to detect a received signal strength of a
satellite television signal received at an antenna and to determine
whether said received signal strength is above a threshold; and
circuitry configured to automatically generate a visual
indication that said received signal strength is below said
threshold for display on a television coupled to said circuitry
configured to detect.
The Examiner relies on the following prior art:
Omoto et al. (Omoto) 4,935,814 Jun. 19, 1990
Claims 1, 2, 5-7 and 9-12 stand finally rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Omoto. Claims 3 and 8
stand finally rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Omoto.
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the
Examiner, reference is made to the Briefs1 and Answer for the
respective details.
Appeal No. 2001-0605
Application No. 08/811,827
3
OPINION
We have carefully considered the subject matter on appeal, the
rejections advanced by the Examiner and the evidence of
anticipation and obviousness relied upon by the Examiner as support
for the rejections. We have, likewise, reviewed and taken into
consideration, in reaching our decision, Appellant’s arguments set
forth in the Briefs along with the Examiner’s rationale in support
of the rejection and arguments in rebuttal set forth in the
Examiner’s Answer.
It is our view, after consideration of the record before us,
that the Omoto reference does not fully meet the invention as set
forth in claims 1, 2, 5-7 and 12, but we reach the opposite
conclusion in regard to Omoto with respect to claims 9-11. We are
also of the view that the evidence relied upon and the level of
skill in the particular art would not have suggested to one of
ordinary skill in the art the obviousness of the invention as set
forth in claims 3 and 8. Accordingly, we affirm-in-part.
We consider first the rejection of claims 1, 2, 5-7 and 9-12
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Omoto.
Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference
discloses, expressly or under the principles of inherency, each and
every element of a claimed invention as well as disclosing
Appeal No. 2001-0605
Application No. 08/811,827
4
structure which is capable of performing the recited functional
limitations. RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Systems, Inc., 730
F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir.); cert. dismissed,
468 U.S. 1228 (1984); W.L. Gore and Associates, Inc. v. Garlock,
Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1554, 220 USPQ 303, 313 (Fed. Cir. 1983),
cert. denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984).
With respect to independent claims 1 and 5, the Examiner
attempts to read the various limitations on the disclosure of
Omoto. In particular, the Examiner directs attention (Answer, page
3, which references the final Office action, paper no. 4) to the
illustration in Figure 1 of Omoto along with the accompanying
description beginning at column 1, line 40 of Omoto.
Appellant’s arguments in response assert a failure of Omoto to
disclose every limitation in each of independent claims 1 and 5 as
is required to support a rejection based on anticipation. After
reviewing the Omoto reference in light of the arguments of record,
we are in general agreement with Appellant’s position as expressed
in the Briefs.
We note initially that we do not find to be persuasive
Appellant’s contention (Brief, pages 3 and 4; Reply Brief, page 2)
that, in contrast to the claimed invention in which a determination
is made whether the received signal strength of a satellite
Appeal No. 2001-0605
Application No. 08/811,827
5
television signal exceeds a threshold, Omoto, at best, detects
whether a noise component is above a threshold. In our view, the
broadest reasonable interpretation of the language of independent
claim 1 and 5 would include an interpretation that a noise signal
component of a received signal is “a” received signal whose
strength is related to a threshold value as in Omoto. Further, in
contradistinction to Appellant’s arguments, the noise component
signal in Omoto is superposed on the video signal and displayed on
a television screen to provide an indication of received signal
quality. (Omoto, column 7, lines 29-42).
Despite the above misgivings with Appellant’s arguments, we do
find ourselves in agreement with Appellant’s further assertion
(Brief, page 4; Reply Brief, page 2) to the effect that, regardless
of any suggestion of a threshold value determination in Omoto,
there is no teaching of any relationship between such threshold
determination and the conditions under which a signal strength
visual indicator is displayed on a televison screen. In this
regard, our interpretation of the disclosure of Omoto coincides
with that of Appellant, i.e., while a thresholding operation is
performed on a received signal (noise component) in Omoto by use of
limiting amplifier to improve the linearity of a displayed signal
quality indicator, such thresholding operation has no impact on
Appeal No. 2001-0605
Application No. 08/811,827
6
when and under what conditions a visual indicator is displayed. In
other words, Omoto has no teaching or suggestion of automatically
displaying a visual indicator that received signal strength is
below a threshold (appealed claim 1) or allowing normal viewing
when signal strength is above a threshold and automatically
displaying an indicator when signal strength is below a threshold
(appealed claim 5).
In view of the above discussion, since all of the claim
limitations are not present in the disclosure of Omoto, we do not
sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection of independent
claims 1 and 5, nor of claims 2, 6, 7, and 12 dependent thereon.
Turning to a consideration of the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) rejection of claims 9-11 we note that, while we found
Appellants’ arguments to be persuasive with respect to the
rejection of claims 1, 2, 5-7, and 12 discussed supra, we reach the
opposite conclusion with respect to claims 9-11. These claims are
directed to the automatic display of a signal strength indicator as
an antenna alignment aid during initial set-up. We agree with the
Examiner (Answer, page 5) that Omoto provides a clear disclosure
(column, 1, lines 8-14; column 4, lines 45-47; column 7, lines
29-45) of displaying a signal strength indicator in the form of a
bar graph to aid antenna alignment during initial installation.
Appeal No. 2001-0605
Application No. 08/811,827
7
Further, contrary to Appellant’s contention, we find nothing in
Omoto which would indicate that the visual signal strength display
is anything other than “automatic” as claimed. Accordingly, the
Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection of claims 9-11 based on
Omoto is sustained.
Lastly, we consider the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims
3 and 8 based on Omoto, and we do not sustain the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of these claims. In addressing the language
of these claims which specify that the displayed visual indication
is a text message, the Examiner sets forth a line of reasoning
(final Office action, paper no. 4, pages 4 and 5) that asserts the
obviousness to the skilled artisan of providing a textual display.
Dependent claims 3 and 8, however, are respectively dependent on
independent claims 1 and 5 which set forth the feature of a
threshold dependent automatic display of a signal strength
indicator, a feature which, from our discussion supra, we found
lacking in Omoto.
In summary, with respect to the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
rejection of the appealed claims, we have sustained the rejection
of claims 9-11, but have not sustained the rejection of claims 1,
2, 5-7, and 12. We have also not sustained the Examiner’s
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 3 and 8. Therefore, the
Appeal No. 2001-0605
Application No. 08/811,827
8
Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-3 and 5-12 is affirmed-in-
part.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection
with this appeal may be extended under 37 CFR § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
JAMES D. THOMAS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
JERRY SMITH ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO )
Administrative Patent Judge )
JFR/lp
Appeal No. 2001-0605
Application No. 08/811,827
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MARIA MCCORMIC SOBRINO
BLAKEY SOKOLOFF TAYLOR AND ZAFMAN
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