Ex Parte Hamynen et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 30, 201410822641 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 30, 2014) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte KIMMO HAMYNEN and ROLAND GEISLER ____________ Appeal 2011-013223 Application 10/822,641 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before JENNIFER D. BAHR, PATRICK R. SCANLON and ANNETTE R. REIMERS, Administrative Patent Judges. REIMERS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-013223 Application 10/822,641 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 Kimmo Hamynen and Roland Geisler (Appellants) appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s decision to reject under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a): (1) claims 1-3, 5, 6, 11-18, 21, 23 and 41-43 as unpatentable over Diedrich (US 2002/0199018 A1, pub. Dec. 26, 2002) and Edmark (US 6,819,267 B1, iss. Nov. 16, 2004); (2) claims 7 and 19 as unpatentable over Diedrich, Edmark and Koss (US 7,573,843 B2, iss. Aug. 11, 2009); and (3) claims 20 and 22 as unpatentable over Diedrich, Edmark and Sorvari (US 2004/0043758 A1, pub. Mar. 4, 2004). Claims 8-10, 24 and 25 have been canceled. Claims 26-40 have been withdrawn from consideration. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claimed subject matter “relates in general to Web functions, and more particularly to a system and method that provides geographically based Web functions.” Spec. 1, ll. 7-8, fig. 1. Claims 1, 15, 21 and 23 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter and recites: 1. A method comprising: obtaining a location update relative to a position of a mobile terminal; 1 The Office Action Summary of the Final Rejection, mailed September 2, 2010, includes the statement “[c]laim(s) 1-7, 11[-]23, 26-43 is/are pending in the application.” Under the Status of Claims section of the Examiner’s Answer, the Examiner states that “[t]he following is a list of claims that are rejected and pending in the application: Claims 1-7, 11-23 and 41-43 are pending.” Ans. 3. The Examiner has not addressed dependent claim 4 in the Final Rejection or in the Examiner’s Answer. See Final Rej. and Examiner’s Ans., generally. Accordingly, dependent claim 4 is not before us for review. Appeal 2011-013223 Application 10/822,641 3 forming location criteria from the location update; including the location criteria and a search keyword in a Web content request from the mobile terminal; and receiving filtered results from the Web content request according to the search keyword and the location criteria to form position relevant Web content at the mobile terminal; and storing the position relevant Web content in a location bookmark area of the mobile terminal, wherein the position relevant Web content is associated with a particular location and arranged by location identifiers within the location bookmark area. ANALYSIS Obviousness over Diedrich and Edmark - Claims 1-3, 5, 6, 11-18, 21, 23 and 41-43 Appellants state that “Appellants do not separately argue the patentability of any dependent claim. Instead, the patentability of all dependent claims stands and falls with their respective independent claims, i.e., independent claims 1, 15, 21, and 23.” Br. 7. Appellants do not present separate arguments for independent claims 1, 15, 21 and 23. Br. 7-11. Therefore, Appellants have argued claims 1-3, 5, 6, 11-18, 21, 23 and 41-43 as a group for purposes of the rejection of those claims under § 103(a). Claim 1 is representative of the group and is selected for review, with claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 11-18, 21, 23 and 41-43 standing or falling with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011). Independent claim 1 recites a method comprising the steps: (1) “including the location criteria and a search keyword in a Web content request from the mobile terminal”; and (2) “storing the position relevant Web content in a location bookmark area of the mobile terminal, wherein the Appeal 2011-013223 Application 10/822,641 4 position relevant Web content is associated with a particular location and arranged by location identifiers within the location bookmark area.” Br. 14, Clms. App’x. The Examiner found that Diedrich discloses all the limitations of claim 1, in particular, the step of “including the location criteria and a search keyword in a Web content request from the mobile terminal” (citing Diedrich, fig. 6, elements 610, 612, 618) except “Diedrich . . . [does] not expressly teach storing the position relevant Web content in a location bookmark area of the mobile terminal, wherein the position relevant Web content is associated with a particular location and arranged by location identifiers within the location bookmark area.” Ans. 4-5. The Examiner further found that Edmark discloses this limitation. Id. at 5 (citing Edmark, fig. 3). The Examiner concluded that “[i]t would have been obvious to combine these teachings as Diedrich . . . taught the use of bookmarks and Edmark . . . taught an organization schema that is compatible with the queries of Diedrich.” Id. Appellants contend that “Diedrich does not disclose or suggest forming ‘location criteria’2 from the location update. In fact, the Examiner fails to indicate what, in Diedrich, is interpreted as forming such ‘location criteria.’” Br. 8-9. Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive. Diedrich discloses FIG. 6 shows one embodiment of a method 600 illustrating steps that may be taken by a client 2 The Specification describes that “[t]he location tags can then be compared to the location information contained within the content request when determining which content is position relevant to the requested location.” Spec. 8, ll. 11-13. Appeal 2011-013223 Application 10/822,641 5 device 122 in order to locate network addresses according to geographic information. In one embodiment, the method 600 may be understood as the execution of the network address locator program 140. The method 600 is entered a step 602 and proceeds to step 604 for initialization. Initialization may include tasks such as reading data from previous executions of the network address locator program 140 and reading default values for the program 140, such as a default location, zone distance and request type. At step 606 the method 600 queries whether a GPS device is present. If so, the current position of the requesting client device 122 is retrieved at step 608. The method 600 and proceeds to step 610. At step 610 a location value is set to indicate the current position of the requesting client device 122. In the event a location value was retrieved at step 608, the value is set, for example, into the location field 310 of the GUI 300 for subsequent display to the user. Diedrich, paras. [0053], [0054] (emphases added), fig. 6; see also Diedrich, para. [0049], fig. 3; Ans. 4, 7. In other words, Diedrich discloses formation of location criteria (a location value indicating the user’s current location is set into location field 310) from the location update (at steps 608/610, the current location is updated from the default location). Appellants further contend that “Diedrich clearly lacks any teaching of ‘location criteria.’ Thus, any Web content request in Diedrich does not include both ‘location criteria’ and a ‘search keyword.’” Br. 9. Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive. Diedrich discloses “[s]earch queries, in the form of search words phrases, keywords, network addresses, etc., are sent from the users to the search tools via a network Appeal 2011-013223 Application 10/822,641 6 connection.” Diedrich, para. [0007] (emphasis added); see also Ans. 8. Diedrich further discloses FIG. 3 depicts one embodiment of a GUI 300. In general, the GUI 300 may be configured with fields, check boxes, pulldown menus, radio buttons, hyper-links and other features facilitating the efforts of the user interested in locating a network address according to geographic information. The GUI 300 may be invoked by the network address locator program 140 and/or the browser program 152 in response to a user command. Illustratively, the GUI 300 includes a location field 310 and a zone field 320. The location field 310 allows a user to enter a particular geographic location (e.g., a street address or GPS position) [location criteria] while the zone field 320 allows the user to specify a region around the particular geographic location [i.e., add keywords to the query at zone field 320 to ensure that a response only includes information matching the query regarding the specified region]. Diedrich, para. [0049], fig. 3; see also Diedrich, paras. [0007], [0054]; Ans. 4, 7-8. Accordingly, we find that Diedrich discloses including location criteria and a search keyword in a request. Appellants contend that “Edmark is directed to activating bookmarks, not [to] storing position-related Web content in a ‘location bookmark area.’ Further, Edmark does not disclose a ‘location identifier’ for arranging the content, as claimed.” Br. 9. Appellants also contend that [w]hile the Examiner does not particularly apply the cited portions of Edmark to the claim language, to whatever extent the Examiner is interpreting the bookmark sets of Edmark as the claimed “location bookmark area,” there is no Appeal 2011-013223 Application 10/822,641 7 storage of position relevant Web content that was received in response to a request for such content, the request including location criteria and a search keyword, in these bookmark sets. Moreover, the Examiner has failed to identify any “location identifiers” in Edmark, much less Web content “arranged by location identifiers within the location bookmark area” (Emphasis Added), as claimed. Id. at 10. Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive. At the outset, as discussed above, the Examiner relied on Diedrich for disclosure of location criteria and a search word in a request. See Ans. 4, 7-8. Further, the Examiner relied on Diedrich for disclosure of position relevant Web content. Ans. 4-5. Edmark discloses a computer network, such as the Internet, is accessible so that other computing devices can perform proximity commands as well as provide bookmark files to the user’s pervasive computing device. In this manner, bookmark files are stored on nonvolatile storage devices [e.g., a nonvolatile storage component located in the pervasive computing device] accessible through the computer network. When []the user is at a certain geographic location, a set of bookmarks corresponding to the location are downloaded to [accessed by] the pervasive computing device and activated for use by the user. Edmark, col. 2, ll. 57-65 (emphases added). Edmark further discloses FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of pervasive computing device 100 [mobile terminal] activating geographic-specific bookmark files. GPS 105 provides GPS coordinates 108 [a particular location] to pervasive computing device 100 Appeal 2011-013223 Application 10/822,641 8 [mobile terminal]. . . . GPS coordinates 108 [a particular location] are provided to bookmark daemon 110 for processing. Bookmark daemon 110 is a process running within pervasive computing device 100 [mobile terminal] that periodically receives coordinate data and determines which bookmark from bookmark configuration file 120 [location bookmark area] should be activated. Bookmark configuration file 120 [location bookmark area] includes data describing bookmarks used by pervasive computing device 100 and coordinate data describing when certain bookmark files are activated. Bookmark configuration file 120 [location bookmark area] includes bookmark name 125 [location identifiers, such as Austin, Dallas, Houston] for each bookmark maintained by [stored by] bookmark configuration file 120 [location bookmark area]. Edmark, col. 3, ll. 38-66, figs. 1-2. Accordingly, we find that Edmark discloses storing content (e.g., lodging, entertainment) in a location bookmark area (bookmark configuration file 120) of the mobile terminal (pervasive computing device 100), wherein the content (e.g., lodging, entertainment) is associated with a particular location (GPS coordinates 108) and arranged by location identifiers (bookmark names 125, such as Austin, Dallas, Houston) within the location bookmark area (bookmark configuration file 120). See Edmark, col. 5, l. 50 – col. 6, l. 14, figs. 1-2; see also Ans. 8. Appellants contend that “the combination of Diedrich and Edmark is improper.” Br. 10. Specifically, Appellants contend that the only bookmark taught by Diedrich is the bookmarking of URLs returned in response to a Appeal 2011-013223 Application 10/822,641 9 search query. The bookmarking of URLs would appear incompatible with the bookmarks of Edmark, which are unrelated to URLs. An URL for a particular website may be loaded when a user is within the proximity of a particular area in Edmark (see col. 4, lines 27-42), but there is no bookmarking of URLs as in Diedrich. Id. at 10-11. Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive. First, Appellants acknowledge that Diedrich discloses bookmarking of URLs (Universal Resource Locators). Id.; see also Diedrich, paras. [0005], [0060]. Second, as pointed out by the Examiner, Edmark discloses that users can save bookmarks (Internet Protocol (IP) address links to their favorite web sites). See Ans. 9-10 (citing Edmark, col. 1, l. 65 – col. 2, l. 17). In this context, a link, IP address or URL, is a network address and both refer to the same idea of accessing a web site. Here, the Examiner found that Diedrich discloses a geographic location (location criteria). See Ans. 7 (citing Diedrich, fig. 3). The Examiner further found that Edmark discloses saving bookmarks in a directory structure, such as by geographical location. Id. at 8 (citing Edmark, fig. 2). Based on the combined teachings of Diedrich and Edmark, we fail to see how the teachings of Edmark would be “incompatible” with those of Diedrich. Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1 and of claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 11-18, 21, 23 and 41-43, which fall with claim 1, as unpatentable over Diedrich and Edmark is sustained. Obviousness over Diedrich, Edmark and Koss - Claims 7 and 19 Claim 7 ultimately depends from claim 1. Claim 19 ultimately depends from claim 15. Appellant contends that “Koss, applied by the Examiner for an asserted teaching of an HTTP message presenting location Appeal 2011-013223 Application 10/822,641 10 criteria within an HTTP header, fails to cure the previously argued deficiencies of Diedrich and Edmark.” Br. 11. However, as we find no deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, and of claim 15, which falls with claim 1, for the reasons discussed above, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 7 and 19 for similar reasons. Obviousness over Diedrich, Edmark and Sorvari - Claims 20 and 22 Claim 20 depends from claim 15. Claim 22 depends from claim 21. Appellant contends that “Sorvari, applied by the Examiner for an asserted teaching of a speech converter, fails to cure the previously argued deficiencies of Diedrich and Edmark.” Br. 12. However, as we find no deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, and of claims 15 and 21, which fall with claim 1, for the reasons discussed above, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 20 and 22 for similar reasons. DECISION We AFFIRM the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-3, 5-7, 11-23 and 41-43. 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 rvb Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation