Ex Parte GrollDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 9, 201914919410 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 9, 2019) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/919,410 10/21/2015 23690 7590 05/13/2019 ROCHE DIAGNOSTICS OPERATIONS INC. 9115 Hague Road Indianapolis, IN 46250-0457 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Henning Groll 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. P24855-US-l 1092 EXAMINER WEARE, MEREDITH H ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3791 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/13/2019 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): j ackie.pike@roche.com pair_roche@firsttofile.com meg.ward@roche.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte HENNING GROLL Appeal 2018-008575 1 Application 14/919,4102 Technology Center 3700 Before MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, CYNTHIA L. MURPHY, and KENNETH G. SCHOPPER, Administrative Patent Judges. SCHOPPER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the rejection of claims 1-4 and 6-13. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 Our decision references the Appeal Brief filed Apr. 25, 2018 ("Br."); the Examiner's Answer mailed June 4, 2018 ("Ans."); and the Final Office Action mailed Oct. 5, 201 7 ("Final Act."). 2 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Roche Diabetes Care, Inc. Br. 2. Appeal2018-008575 Application 14/919,410 BACKGROUND Embodiments described in the Specification are related to blood glucose management devices. See, e.g., Spec. ,i,i 7, 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM Claim 1 is the only independent claim on appeal and recites: 1. A portable blood glucose management device, compnsmg: a housing including a display and a user entry means for receiving user input; a processor in the housing operatively connected to the display and the user entry means; and a memory connected to the processor, wherein the processor is configured to: associate a plurality of blood glucose measurements that may be stored in the memory with a respective one of a number of context groups of blood glucose measurements that may be stored in the memory, receive a summary measurement data request upon user input via the user entry means, and, in response to receiving the summary measurement data request, seamlessly3 produce summary measurement data on the display, wherein the summary measurement data comprises a pre-arranged sequence of a plurality of graphical representations of the context groups of at least two or more of a fasting context group, a prandial context group, an exercise context group, a pre- sleep context group, an episodic testing context group, a pre- office visit context group, a glucose tolerance context group, an Average Daily Risk Ratio context group and a predicted HbA 1 c 3 The Specification defines "seamlessly" as "automatically without user interaction with the entry means or the blood glucose management device, or after a single user interaction with the entry means or blood glucose management device." Spec. ,i 7. 2 Appeal2018-008575 Application 14/919,410 context group, wherein the pre-arranged sequence of the plurality of graphical representations of the context groups comprises averages over pre-defined periods of time selected from the group consisting of 7 days, 14 days, 30 days and 90 days, wherein each graphical representation of the pre-arranged sequence is displayed seamlessly and sequentially for a period of time automatically and without further user input to the user entry means, and wherein each of the plurality of graphical representations is directed to blood glucose measurements in a different context group. Br. 16. REJECTIONS 1. The Examiner rejects claims 1-3, 6, 11, and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Brauer4 in view of Clendenon5 and Orr. 6 2. The Examiner rejects claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Brauer in view of Clendenon, Orr, and Causey. 7 3. The Examiner rejects claims 7-9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Brauer in view of Clendenon, Orr, and Dixon. 8 4. The Examiner rejects claim 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Brauer in view of Clendenon, Orr, Dixon, and Avellino. 9 5. The Examiner rejects claim 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Brauer in view of Clendenon, Orr, and Goodnow. 10 4 Brauer et al., US 2009/0149717 Al, pub. June 11, 2009 ("Brauer"). 5 Clendenon, US 2002/0072959 Al, pub. June 13, 2002. 6 Orr et al., US 2009/0187351 Al, pub. July 23, 2009 ("Orr"). 7 Causey, III et al., US 6,558,320 Bl, iss. May 6, 2003 ("Causey"). 8 Dixon et al., US 2010/0095229 Al, pub. Apr. 15, 2010 ("Dixon"). 9 Avellino, US 2010/0184565 Al, pub. July 22, 2010. 10 Goodnow et al., US 2006/0010098 Al, pub. Jan. 12, 2006. 3 Appeal2018-008575 Application 14/919,410 DISCUSSION Appellant groups all claims together and only presents arguments with respect to the rejection of claim 1. See Br. 7-14. We address claim 1 below, and the remaining claims fall with claim 1. With respect to claim 1, the Examiner finds that Brauer teaches a portable blood glucose management device as claimed except that Brauer does not disclose the seamless presentation of a pre-arranged sequence of graphical displays or the use of two or more context groups represented in such graphical displays. Final Act. 3-4 ( citing Brauer Figs. 2, 3; ,-J,-J 32, 33, 35, 38, 50). Regarding the seamless presentation of graphical displays, the Examiner relies on Clendenon. Id. at 4-5 (citing Clendenon ,-J 15). Regarding the display of data related to two or more context groups, the Examiner relies on Orr. Id. at (5-6). More specifically, with respect to the seamless presentation of graphical displays, the Examiner finds that Brauer: teaches, or at the very least suggests, providing quick and convenient access to the features of the device while limiting user interaction with the device (,-J [0035]), which includes summary or trend data (,-J [0051 ]), such that one of ordinary skill in the art would have sufficient motivation to look to analogous references that provide quickly/conveniently accessible displays of information, as disclosed by Clendenon, which requires no user interaction for a user to access multiple graphical representations of data. Final Act. 13-14. The Examiner finds that "Clendenon teaches and/or suggests a method of displaying data that is quick and convenient in that multiple representations of data are displayed automatically and sequentially, i.e., without requiring any user interaction to move from one data type to next." Id. at 15. The Examiner also acknowledges that 4 Appeal2018-008575 Application 14/919,410 Clendenon does not teach seamlessly displaying multiple progress graphs related to glucose measurements, but "when multiple screens of related data are to be displayed, Clendenon teaches/suggests providing a scrolling display." Id. at 16. Further, the Examiner clarifies that Brauer is relied upon as displaying multiple graphical representations of related data, not Clendenon. Id. Finally, the Examiner determines that employing Clendenon's seamless display of information into Brauer would provide a beneficial "increase [to] user convenience and speed of access to context group glucose data representations." Id. at 4-5. We agree with and adopt the Examiner's findings and conclusions with respect to the rejection of claim 1. See id. at 3-6, 13-17; see also Ans. 2-9. As discussed below, we are not persuaded of reversible error in the rejection of claim 1. Appellant first argues that the cited references do not teach all the limitations of claim 1. Br. 8-10. In particular, Appellant asserts that the art does not teach a summary measurement data request, seamlessly producing summary measurement data on a display following a single user input, and the data being a graphical representation of context groups over pre-defined periods. Id. at 8-9. Appellant asserts that the relied upon passages of Brauer do "not contemplate or disclose a summary measurement data request that requires a single user input and does not contemplate or disclose its contents as required in Claim l." Id. at 9. We are not persuaded by this argument against Brauer individually. The rejection before us does not rely on Brauer as teaching a seamless summary measurement display as claimed. Rather, the Examiner relies on Brauer as teaching multiple graphical representations of data and as 5 Appeal2018-008575 Application 14/919,410 suggesting the use of quick and convenient means to access features of the device, as noted above. The Examiner then relies on Clendenon as teaching a seamless display of information in order to support the determination that providing a seamless display of blood glucose information would have been obvious. Appellant next argues that Clendenon' s automatic displays only relate to initial set-up of the device and that "one of skill in the art would recognize that there is a vast difference between ... [ setting up the device and displaying measurement data as claimed], the information being displayed, and the motivation for displaying such information." Br. 9-10. Thus, Appellant argues that "one of skill in the art would not have looked to combine" the art of record to arrive at the claimed device. Id. at 10. We disagree. The Examiner explains that the motivation comes from Brauer' s suggestion that simplified and convenient access to features is desired such that one would recognize that seamless display of sequential data as taught by Clendenon would provide a beneficial "increase [to] user convenience and speed of access to context group glucose data representations." Final Act. 4-5. Thus, the Examiner's rejection is not premised upon one of these references alone teaching a sequential display of glucose measurements as claimed, but rather on what would have been obvious when viewing the references as a whole. Next, Appellant indicates that Clendenon is non-analogous art. Specifically, Appellant argues that Clendenon is unrelated "as it is directed only toward small behavior modification devices such as keychain dongles, pens and watches." Br. 11. A reference is analogous if it is from the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention or if not within the same field of 6 Appeal2018-008575 Application 14/919,410 endeavor, the reference is reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor is involved. In re Klein, 647 F.3d 1343, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2011 ). The Specification discloses that the problems addressed by Appellant's invention are related to "accurate recording and reporting of blood glucose measurements." Spec. ,i 6. We find that Clendenon is reasonably pertinent to these problems. Specifically, Clendenon discloses a device that uses operator input and user history to provide prompting signals, and Clendenon discloses that similar conditioning devices are useful for diabetes management. Clendenon ,i,i 1, 3. Clendenon also discloses that the device could "be configured for various visual displays, such as but not limited ... a progress graph, or the average recent interval between generated signals based upon an established number recent operator responses" to show whether unwanted user behavior is diminishing or increasing. Id. ,i 5. Thus, Clendenon's device provides prompts to a user to promote positive behavior such as in the area of diabetes management, which is pertinent to the accurate recording and measurement of blood glucose levels at specific times. Appellant also appears to argue that Clendenon teaches away because Clendenon "promotes randomness in its reminders," which is "incompatible with the need for regularly scheduled testing as required in diabetes management." Br. 12-13. We disagree. In any event, it is not clear how this argument is related to the claim at issue, which does not require a specific schedule of testing and only relates to the display of glucose measurements that have already been obtained. Thus, Appellant's argument does not apprise us of how Clendenon might teach away from the claimed invention. 7 Appeal2018-008575 Application 14/919,410 Finally, Appellant argues that the rejection is based on improper hindsight. Id. at 10. Appellant asserts that the Examiner has used the claimed invention as a blueprint "not only to identify the elements of the invention from the cited references but also to arrange the elements so that the claimed invention results therefrom." Id. at 11. In support, Appellant asserts that Clendenon is unrelated art, Clendenon promotes randomness of reminders, and Brauer does not mention the need for improvements such that there is no motivation to alter Brauer' s method of scrolling through information. Id. at 11-13. However, we disagree with each of these points for the reasons discussed above. Appellant does not otherwise explain what information is relied upon that is gleaned solely from Appellant's disclosure. Based on the foregoing, we are not persuaded of reversible error in the rejection of claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 1. We also sustain the rejections of claims 2-4 and 6-13, for which Appellant does not provide separate arguments. CONCLUSION We AFFIRM the rejections of claims 1-4 and 6-13. 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 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation