Ex Parte Gharachorloo et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 14, 2016

12719245 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 14, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
121719,245 03/08/2010
25537 7590 06/16/2016
VERIZON
PA TENT MANAGEMENT GROUP
1320 North Court House Road
9th Floor
ARLINGTON, VA 22201-2909
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Nader Gharachorloo
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.
20090683 6733
EXAMINER
MONIKANG, GEORGE C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2651
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/16/2016 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):
patents@verizon.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte NADER GHARACHORLOO and MICHELLE PELT
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
Technology Center 2600
Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, JOHN F. HORVATH, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-5, 7, 8, 10, 12-17, 19, 20, 22, and 24--31, which are all of the
pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
The application is directed to "[a] mobile communication device [that]
connects with a computing device via short range wireless signaling ... and
receives audible information from a user of the mobile communication
device." (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative:
1. A method comprising:
providing, by a mobile communication device and for dis-
play, information regarding a plurality of devices that include a
set-top box and a computing device;
receiving, by the mobile communication device and from a
user of the mobile communication device, a selection of the com-
puting device, from the plurality of devices, for a public an-
nouncement;
connecting, based on the selection of the computing device,
the mobile communication device with the computing device via
short range wireless signaling provided between the mobile com-
munication device and the computing device;
1 Appellants identify "Verizon Communications Inc. and its subsidiary
companies, which currently include Verizon Business Global, LLC
(formerly MCI, LLC) and Cellco Partnership (doing business as Verizon
Wireless, and which includes as a minority partner affiliates of Vodafone
Group Plc)" as the real parties in interest. (App. Br. 3.)
2
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
receiving, by the mobile communication device and from the
user, audible information to be used for the public announce-
ment;
encoding, by the mobile communication device, the audible
information at a particular audio bandwidth; and
providing, by the mobile communication device, the encoded
audible information to the computing device for the computing
device to output the public announcement based on the encoded
audible information.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Brand et al. US 7,136,478 Bl Nov. 14, 2006
Moosavi et al. US 8,538,383 B2 Sept. 17, 2013
Bhatkata et al. US 2006/0040673 Al Feb.23,2006
Erickson et al. US 2007/0256126 Al Nov. 1, 2007
Hao et al. US 2008/0139193 Al June 12, 2008
Zwart et al. US 2008/0212582 Al Sept. 4, 2008
Barnes, Jr. US 2009/0144624 Al June 4, 2009
Jeon US 2009/0143012 Al June 4, 2009
Haff et al. US 2009/0197524 Al Aug. 6, 2009
THE REJECTIONS
1. Claims 1-5, 13, 15-17, and 30-31 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Jeon, Zwart, and Hao. (See Final
Act. 3-9.)
3
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
2. Claims 7, 8, 12, 19, 20, 24, 25, and 29 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Moosavi, Barnes, and Erickson.
(See Final Act. 9-13.)
3. Claims 10 and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Moosavi, Barnes, Erickson, and Haff. (See Final Act. 13.)
4. Claims 14 and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Jeon, Zwart, Hao, and Bhatkata. (See Final Act. 14.)
5. Claim 27 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Moosavi, Barnes, Erickson, and Brand. (See Final Act.
14--15.)
6. Claim 28 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Jeon, Zwart, Hao, and Erickson. (See Final Act. 15-16.)
APPELLANTS' CONTENTIONS
Appellants argue that the rejections were improper for the following
reasons:
1. "JEON, ZWART et al., and HAO et al. do not disclose or
suggest 'receiving, by the mobile communication device and from a user of
the mobile communication device, a selection of the computing device, from
the plurality of devices, for a public announcement' and 'providing, by the
mobile communication device, the encoded audible information to the
computing device for the computing device to output the public
announcement,' as recited in claim 1." (App. Br. 8.)
2. "JEON, ZWART et al., and HAO et al. do not disclose or
suggest 'receiving a particular selection of two or more devices, from the
plurality of computing devices, for the public announcement, the two or
4
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
more devices including the computing device and the set-top box,' as recited
in claim 30." (App. Br. 13.)
3. "JEON, ZWART et al., and HAO et al. do not disclose or
suggest one or more processors to 'receive, from the user of the user device,
another selection of the other device for the public announcement when the
selection of the computing device is received' and 'provide, based on the
other selection, the encoded audible information to the other device for the
other device to output the public announcement based on the encoded
audible information,' as recited in claim 31." (App. Br. 16.)
4. "MOOSA VI et al., BARNES, Jr., and ERICKSON do not
disclose or suggest 'receiving, by the mobile communication device, a
selection of an option to shut down one or more computing devices after the
one or more computing devices output the public announcement' and
'providing, by the mobile communication device, to the one or more
computing devices, and based on the selection of the option, instructions to
shut down after outputting the public announcement, the instructions to shut
down being separate from the public announcement,' as recited in claim 7."
(App. Br. 18-19.)
5. "MOOSA VI et al., BARNES, Jr., and ERICKSON et al. do not
disclose or suggest 'receiving information regarding a particular time to
output the public announcement' and 'providing, to the one or more
computing devices, instructions to output the public announcement at the
particular time,' as recited in claim [8]." (App. Br. 22.)
6. "MOOSA VI et al., BARNES, Jr., and ERICKSON et al. do not
disclose or suggest that 'the public announcement comprises a pre-recorded
audio message,' as recited in claim 12." (App. Br. 23.)
5
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
7. "MOOSA VI et al., BARNES, Jr., and ERICKSON et al. do not
disclose or suggest that 'the instructions to shut down include instructions to
shut down after the particular time period passes after the outputting of the
public announcement,' as recited in claim 29." (App. Br. 24--25.)
8. "MOOSA VI et al., BARNES, Jr., ERICKSON et al., and HAFF
et al. do not disclose or suggest 'receiving a different selection of a different
option to pause during the outputting of the public announcement' and
'providing, to the one or more computing devices and based on the different
selection of the different option, information instructing the one or more
computing devices to pause during the outputting of the public
announcement,' as recited in claim 10." (App. Br. 26.)
9. "JEON, ZWART et al., HAO et al., and BHATKATA et al. do
not disclose or suggest 'where the encoded audible information comprises
one of: the audible information encoded at an audio bandwidth greater than
three kilohertz, or the audible information compressed in accordance with an
Evolution-Data Optimized (EVDO) telecommunications standard,' as
recited in claim 14." (App. Br. 29.)
10. "JEON, ZWART et al., HAO et al., and BHATKA TA et al. do
not disclose or suggest 'where the particular audio bandwidth is greater than
an audio bandwidth used for telephone signals,' as recited in claim 26."
(App. Br. 31.)
11. "JEON, ZWART et al., HAO et al., and ERICKSON et al. do
not disclose or suggest 'receiving a different selection of an option to shut
down the computing device after the computing device outputs the encoded
audible information' and 'providing, to the computing device and based on
the different selection of the option, information instructing the computing
6
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
device to shut down after outputting the encoded audible information,' as
recited in claim 28." (App. Br. 33.)
ANALYSIS
We address Appellants' arguments in the order presented. The
parentheticals in the headings below correspond to Appellants' contentions
listed above.
(1) Claims 1-5, 13, and 15-17
With respect to these claims, Appellants argue that although Jeon
discloses displaying device names in a list and receiving a device selection
from the list, Jeon "does not even mention a public announcement or
anything similar to a public announcement." App. Br. 9. Appellants further
argue that Zwart's disclosure of "[a] mere 'public address system' does not
disclose or suggest 'a selection of the computing device, from the plurality
of devices, for a public announcement' and providing 'the encoded audible
information to the computing device for the computing device to output the
public announcement,' as recited." (App. Br. 11.) These arguments are
unpersuasive because they addresses the references separately, instead of the
combination formulated by the Examiner. See In re Merck & Co. Inc., 800
F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The Examiner found that Jeon teaches
selection of a specific device for pairing, via Bluetooth, and the transmission
of audio information. (See Final Act. 4.) The Examiner further found that,
while Jeon does not specifically teach encoding audio information to be
output as a public announcement, Zwart did provide such a teaching, also
over a Bluetooth connection. (See Final Act. 4--5.) Thus, the "selection" is
found in Jeon and the encoding and announcement are found in Zwart.
7
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
Our analyses of Appellants' arguments regarding the "providing" step
recited in this and other claims are redundant with our analyses regarding the
respective "receiving" or "selecting" steps. Where we agree the Examiner
has shown that the audible information (in claims 1 and 31) or instructions
(in claims 7, 8, 10, and 28) are received or selected in the combination, we
also agree they would be provided to the other devices.
We see no error in the Examiner's findings, or in the Examiner's
conclusion that it would have been obvious to combine them, and therefore
sustain the rejections of claims 1-5, 13, and 15-1 7.
(2) Claim 30
We sustain the rejection of claim 30 for essentially the same reason
we sustained the rejection of claim 1. The Examiner finds that Zwart
teaches distributing an announcement to more than one device, and that Hao
teaches that a mobile device may communicate with a set top box. (See
Final Act. 8; Ans. 16-17.) Appellants do not dispute these findings.
Appellants' argument (App. Br. 13-15) that Jeon does not teach or suggest
"receiving a particular selection of two or more devices, from the plurality of
computing devices, for the public announcement, the two or more devices
including the computing device and the set-top box" fails to address the
Examiner's findings that Zwart teaches distributing a public announcement
to multiple devices and that Hao teaches communicating with the set top
box. And the argument (App. Br. 15) that Hao "does not disclose 'receiving
a particular selection of two or more devices, from the plurality of
computing devices, for the public announcement" fails to address the
Examiner's findings that Jeon teaches receiving the selection of devices and
that Zwart teaches distributing a public announcement to multiple devices.
8
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
We again see no error in the Examiner's findings that the references teach or
suggest all of the claimed features, or in the Examiner's conclusion that their
combination would have been obvious to a skilled artisan.
(3) Claim 31
We sustain the rejection of claim 31 for essentially the same reason
we sustained the rejection of claims 1 and 30. The Examiner finds that the
combination of Jean, Zwart, and Hao teaches all of the limitations, but
Appellants attack the references separately instead of addressing their
combined teachings. See In re Merck, 800 F.2d at 1097.
(4) Claims 7, 19, and 25
The issue for these claims is whether the cited art teaches or suggests
an option to shut down one or more of the devices after the public
announcement. The Examiner relies on paragraph 36 of Erickson (see Final
Act. 10-11), which includes the following passage:
The remote control 12 may also include a timer/alarm to auto-
matically send a shut-off signal (via the dongle 14) to shut off a
television set or other audio and/ or video device at designated
time or after designated period (e.g., in 15 minutes).
Appellants argue that "an 'instruction to shut down/tum on an audio
output at a particular time and tum on/shut down the audio output after a
predetermined period of time' does not disclose or suggest receiving 'a
selection of an option to shut down one or more computing devices after the
one or more computing devices output the public announcement."' (Reply
Br. 8-9.) We are not persuaded. Instead, we agree with the Examiner that
Erickson's teachings regarding shutting down an audio or video device at a
given time would have made it obvious to a skilled artisan to shut down a
device after it output the public announcement. See KSR Int 'l Co. v. Teleflex
9
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007) ("[l]f a technique has been used to improve
one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it
would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is
obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill.").
The rejections of claims 7, 19, and 25 are sustained.
(5) Claims 8 and 20
These claims require providing instructions to output a public
announcement at a particular time. The Examiner cites Erickson as teaching
that an announcement might be scheduled for a particular time. (See Final
Act. 11.) Appellants argue that "[a] remote control including 'a timer/alarm
to automatically send a shut-off signal (via the dongle 14) to shut off a
television set or other audio and/or video device at designated time or after
designated period' does not disclose or suggest 'receiving information
regarding a particular time to output the public announcement."' (App. Br.
21-22.) We agree with the Examiner that Erickson's teachings regarding
scheduling of events "at [a] designated time or after [a] designated period"
would have made it obvious to optionally schedule the timing of an
announcement and, therefore, sustain the rejections of claims 8 and 12. See
KSR, 550 U.S. at 417.
(6) Claim 12
This claim requires that the public announcement comprise a pre-
recorded audio message. For a "pre-recorded audio message," the Examiner
cites paragraph 40 of Barnes, explaining that the "mobile communication
device of Barnes. Jr. could be utilized to control the voice recorder to play a
previously recorded voice for public announcement." (Ans. 19, citing
Barnes i-f 40, emphasis omitted.) We agree that, in light of this disclosure of
10
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
pre-recorded messages, it would have been obvious to use a pre-recorded
audio message in lieu of a newly recorded announcement, as the skilled
artisan is "[a] person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton" who would
"be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a
puzzle." KSR, 550 U.S. at 420-21.
(7) Claim 29
We sustain the rejection of claim 29 for the same reasons we sustained
the rejections of claims 7 and 8, namely that, in light of Erickson, it would
have been obvious to offer an option to shut down a remote device and to
schedule the shutdown to occur "after [a] designated period." (Erickson i-f
36.)
(8) Claim 10 and 22
These claims require receiving a selection to pause the device during
the outputting of the public announcement. To meet this limitation, the
Examiner cites Haff, which teaches that "mobile device 106 may cause
media device 108-x to pause/resume outputting audio/video when an
audio/video event associated with mobile device 106 occurs." (Haff i-f 75.)
We agree with the Examiner that this disclosure would have made it obvious
to pause the activity on a device during the public announcement (the
occurrence of "an audio/video event associated with mobile device"), and to
offer the user an option to do so.
(9) Claim 14
Claim 14 requires that the audible information be either (a) encoded at
a bandwidth greater than three kilohertz or (b) compressed according to the
EVDO standard. The Examiner found that paragraphs 10 and 20 of
11
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
Bhatkata "discloses a system where a mobile device uses a bandwidth larger
than 3 kilohertz to transmit data other than telephone data." (Ans 20.)
Appellants argue that paragraph 20 "do[ es] not disclose or suggest 'an
audio bandwidth greater than three kilohertz.'" (Reply Br. 16.) We do not
agree, as the reference contemplates "streaming audio" at "a bandwidth of 5
MHZ" (Bhatkata i-fi-f l 0, 20), which is substantially higher than 3 kilohertz.
We thus sustain the rejection of claim 14.
(10) Claim 26
The Examiner also relies on Bhatkata as teaching that the audio
bandwidth is "greater than an audio bandwidth used for telephone signals,"
as required by claim 26. (See Final Act. 14.) We agree that Bhatkata
teaches streaming audio at a rate higher than the rate that can be handled by
a conventional telephone, as it teaches pooling phones to achieve a higher
cumulative bandwidth for streaming, and therefore affirm the rejection of
claim 26.
(11) Claim 28
We sustain the rejection of claim 28 for the same reason we sustained
the rejection of claim 7, as we find it would have been obvious to shut down
a remote device after the announcement, and to provide that as an option.
(See Erickson i136.)
12
Appeal2015-000206
Application 12/719 ,245
DECISION
The rejections of claims 1-5, 7, 8, 10, 12-17, 19, 20, 22, and24-31
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)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
13