Ex Parte Hatton

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 26, 2017

12607244 (P.T.A.B. May. 26, 2017)

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.
12/607,244 10/28/2009 David Anthony Hatton 81185530 4240
28395 7590 05/31/2017
RROOKS KTTSHMAN P C /FfTET EXAMINER
1000 TOWN CENTER DU, HUNG K
22ND FLOOR
SOUTHFIELD, MI 48075-1238 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2645
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/31/2017 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):
docketing @brookskushman.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DAVID ANTHONY HATTON
Appeal 2017-002354
Application 12/607,244
Technology Center 2600
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, IRVIN E. BRANCH, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-002354
Application 12/607,244
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Non-Final
Rejection of claims 14, 15, and 17—21, which are all of the pending claims.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
The application “generally relate[s] to a method and system for
emergency call handling.” (Spec. 11:15—16.) Claim 14, reproduced below,
exemplifies the subject matter on appeal:
14. A vehicle computing system comprising:
one or more computer processors configured to
determine if a communication device is connected to the
vehicle computing system, upon detection of an emergency
event;
search for a connectable communication device and
automatically connect to an available connectable
communication device, if the communication device is not
connected to the vehicle computing system; and
place an emergency communication using the communication
device, after the processor automatically connects to the
communication device.
1 Appellant identifies Ford Global Technologies, LLC as the real party in
interest. (See App. Br. 2.)
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Application 12/607,244
THE REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner
appeal is:
Bigwood et al.
Kim
Rokusek et al.
Krasner et al.
Rimoni et al.
US 2002/0086718 Al
US 2008/0039018 Al
US 2008/0242365 Al
US 7,574,195 B2
US 7,706,796 B2
in rejecting the claims on
July 4, 2002
Feb. 14, 2008
Oct. 2, 2008
Aug. 11,2009
Apr. 27, 2010
THE REJECTIONS
1. Claims 14, 17, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Krasner and Rokusek. (See Final Act. 5—11.)
2. Claim 15 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Krasner, Rokusek, and Kim. (See Final Act. 11—12.)
3. Claims 19 and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Krasner, Rokusek, and Rimoni. (See Final Act. 13—16.)
4. Claim 18 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Krasner, Rokusek, and Bigwood. (See Final Act. 16—17.)
ANALYSIS
Addressing claim 14, the Examiner finds that “Krasner discusses upon
detection of an emergency event, the detection system transmits an event
message to a target mobile device over a short-range wireless link
established by the automatic connectivity method” but “does not specifically
disclose the automatic connectivity includes the steps of determining if a
mobile device is connected to the detection system, searching for a
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Application 12/607,244
connectable mobile device if the mobile device is not connected, and
automatically connecting to an available connectable mobile device.” (Non-
Final Act. 6.) The Examiner further finds, however, that “Rokusek teaches
the method of determining if a communication device is connected to a
hands-free device . . ., searching for a connectable communication device . .
., and automatically connecting to an available connectable communication
device, if a communication device is not connected to the hands-free
device.” {Id. at 7.) The Examiner concludes that one of skill in the art
would have been motivated to modify Krasner by adding Rokusek’s
automatic connectivity method “to enable the detection system to find and
connect with any mobile device that can provide connectivity to the PSAP
operator during an emergency, thus improve the chance of being able to
connect with the PSAP operator during an emergency.” {Id. at 7—8.) The
Examiner further explains that the claim is directed to a “combination of
known elements by known methods with no change in respective function,
and the combination would yield predictable results.” {Id. at 8.)
Appellant, grouping the independent claims together and not
separately addressing the dependent claims, argues that “what Rokusek
actually teaches is that the process [of looking for devices] would always be
on-going, and there would be no reason to tie it to an accident-state, because,
due to its ongoing nature, the process would have either a) already found and
connected-to a present wireless device; or b) come up fruitless in its ongoing
search, rendering implementation at the point of accident pointless.” (App.
Br. 6.) Thus, Appellant asserts, “[w]hat the Examiner is proposing is
changing the teachings of Rokusek such that the automatic connection is not
continual as explicitly taught, but rather occurs at the time of an accident.”
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Application 12/607,244
(Id.) Appellant concludes that “[a] skilled artisan, presented with the
teachings of Rokusek, would rather simply implement the continual
connectivity nature of Rokusek into Krasner, and not break the teachings
thereof to cover a unique use-case for no better reason than to teach the
claims.” (Id.) Appellant additionally argues that “neither reference
determines whether or not a device is currently connected.” (Id. at 7.)
In the Answer, the Examiner provides the following additional
analysis:
The emergency detection system cannot establish end-to-end
voice communication with the remote PSAP without having
short-range wireless connection with the mobile device (10) es­
tablished. Since the emergency detection system need[s] to trig­
ger the mobile device to contact the PSAP over the cellular net­
work in response to the emergency event, it would [have been]
obvious for the emergency detection system to have an already
established short-range wireless connection to the mobile device
(10) at the time of the emergency event or to automatically es­
tablish the short-range wireless connection to the mobile device
if emergency detection system does not already have the connec­
tion so that the emergency detection system can send the emer­
gency event trigger message to the mobile device.
(Ans. 5.)
Appellant replies that “the claims call for determining if a device is
connected responsive to an accident (the trigger),” but “Rokusek responds to
the ‘vehicle state trigger’ (i.e., the power up in Rokusek) by immediately
‘attempting to connect’ to a device, not by determining if there is a device
already connected.” (Reply Br. 3.) Appellant asserts that “[w]hile Rokusek
does teach that, following unsuccessful connection to a first device, a second
device connection is attempted, the Examiner cannot ignore the whole
teachings of Rokusek in the interest of cherry-picking a limitation for
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Application 12/607,244
importation into the combination.” (Id.) Appellant additionally asserts that
“[i]n Rokusek, the determination as to whether or not a device is connected
is responsive to attempting to connect to the device,” whereas “[i]n the
claims, the determination as to whether or not a device is connected is
responsive to the accident detection (the vehicle state trigger, as the
Examiner would construe it).” (Id.) Appellant also argues the combination
would be configured so as to (1) detect an accident, (2) determine possible
connections based on previously saved devices, (3) attempt to connect to one
of the devices, and (4) if the connection attempt was not successful, attempt
to connect to another device. (Id.) Appellant contends that this arrangement
“fails to teach that the determination as to whether or not a device was
connected is responsive to accident detection.” (Id. at 4.)
We agree with and adopt the Examiner’s analysis. We find
Appellant’s arguments unpersuasive because they are based on a bodily
incorporation of one reference into the other and fail to account for the
teachings of the references as a whole. We agree with the Examiner that,
given Rokusek’s teaching of automatically connecting to a device where one
is not already connected, it would have been obvious to modify Krasner such
that, in the event of an accident for which the system would make a call
through a connected device, the system, if not already connected, would
search for and connect to an available device (as taught in Rokusek) in order
to make the call. We agree that one would have been motivated to make this
combination “to enable the detection system to find and connect with any
mobile device that can provide connectivity to the PSAP operator during an
emergency, thus improve the chance of being able to connect with the PSAP
operator during an emergency.” (Final Act. 7—8.)
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Application 12/607,244
Because we find Appellant’s arguments unpersuasive, we sustain the
rejections of claims 14, 15, and 17—21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
DECISION
The rejections of claims 14, 15, and 17—21 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
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