Ex Parte Isert et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 5, 2017

13368896 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 5, 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.
13/368,896 02/08/2012 Carsten Isert 080437.64224US 8632
23911 7590
CROWELL & MORING LLP
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY GROUP
P.O. BOX 14300
WASHINGTON, DC 20044-4300
EXAMINER
MALHOTRA, SANJEEV
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3665
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/07/2017 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):
edocket @ crowell. com
tche @ crowell. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte CARSTENISERT and
ANDREAS WINCKLER
Appeal 2015-004209
Application 13/368,896
Technology Center 3600
Before MICHAEL L. HOELTER, LYNNE H. BROWNE, and
BRENT M. DOUGAL, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOELTER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is a decision on appeal, under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), from the
Examiner’s non-final rejection of claims 1—14. Appeal Br. 2. Claims 15—18
have been canceled. App. Br. 29 (Claims Appendix). We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
Appeal 2015-004209
Application 13/368,896
THE CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The disclosed subject matter “relates to a process for operating a route
acquisition system and to a route acquisition system.” Spec. 12. Claims 1
and 14 are independent claims. Claim 1 is illustrative of the claims on
appeal and is reproduced below:
1. A process for operating a route acquisition system having
a route acquisition unit and a data memory operably configured
for determining route data during a movement of the route
acquisition system along preset routes and for storing the preset
routes in the form of electronic routes in a data memory, the
process comprising the acts of:
during a preset first operation of the route acquisition
system, as a function of the electronic routes stored in the data
memory, a preset selection of routes is determined;
for each route of the preset selection, a number of
essentially coinciding routes of the preset selection and a route
point in time, which is representative of a point in time at which
the route acquisition system was moved along the preset route,
and a first route time indication relative to a first time unit as a
function of the route point in time, and a second route time
indication relative to a second time unit as a function of the
route point in time, are determined;
a route evaluation is determined for each route of the
preset selection as a function of the assigned number of routes
and the assigned route point in time and the assigned first and
second route time indication;
each route of the preset selection is marked with the
assigned determined route evaluation;
during a preset second operation of the route acquisition
system, a size of an occupied storage space of the data memory
is determined; and
as a function of the determined size of the occupied
storage space, the respective route of the preset selection is
deleted from the data memory as a function of its assigned route
evaluation.
2
Appeal 2015-004209
Application 13/368,896
REFERENCES RELIED ON BY THE EXAMINER
Tenmoku et al.
Leeke et al.
Kolb
Kato
US 5,486,822
US 6, 587,127 B1
US 2009/0037086 Al
US 2010/0292924 Al
Jan. 23, 1996
July 1,2003
Feb. 5, 2009
Nov. 18,2010
“[T]he Examiner hereby takes Official Notice that it is well known in
the computer industry that memory storage space is inherently recalculated .
. . whenever files and/or data are deleted from memory space.” Non-Final
Act. 6. The Examiner further states, “deletion of data in memory has been
well known for over two decades in the field of data manipulations by
computers.” Ans. 12.
Claims 1—14 are rejected under 35 USC § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Tenmoku, Kato, Kolb, Leeke, and Official Notice.
Each independent claim (i.e., claims 1 and 14) includes, as part of
their respective last limitation, the recitation “as a function of the determined
size of the occupied storage space,” data is deleted. The Examiner relies on
Leeke and Official Notice for such teaching. Non-Final Act. 6; Ans. 12.
Appellants contend that such reliance is deficient because Leeke
fails to disclose deletion “‘as a function of the determined size of the
occupied storage space,’ as recited in claims 1 and 14.” App. Br. 14; see
also Id. at 15—16. Appellants also contend that the relied-upon Official
Notice is deficient “since the actual [Official] Notice relates to a different
1 The rejection of claims 1—14 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to
non-statutory subject matter has been withdrawn. Ans. 2.
THE REJECTION ON APPEAL1
ANALYSIS
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Appeal 2015-004209
Application 13/368,896
concept, i.e., recalculating memory space after data has been deleted.”2
App. Br. 18.
The Official Notice relied upon in the Non-Final Office Action is
directed to it being “well known in the computer industry that memory
storage space is inherently recalculated . . . whenever files and/or data are
deleted from memory space” and thereafter displayed. Non-Final Act. 6.
We thus agree with Appellants that, regarding this statement of Official
Notice, “it is unclear how recalculating memory storage space after data is
deleted is relevant to the claimed invention” (i.e., relevant to the limitation
that “as a function of the determined size of the occupied storage space,”
data is deleted). App. Br. 18.
It is perhaps for this reason that the “Examiner clarifies that as noted
in the rejection above, deletion of data in memory has been well known for
over two decades in the field of data manipulations by computers.”3 Ans. 12
(emphasis added). However, this clarification still does not address the
recited limitation of “as a function of the determined size of the occupied
storage space,” data is deleted. Instead, the Examiner simply states that it
has been known to delete data without any further explanation or discussion
as to how such knowledge about deletion makes obvious the determination
of the size of the occupied storage space prior to any such deletion.
2 Appellants state, “what is paramount to the invention and expressly set
forth in the claims, is that the size of storage space must be determined
before any data is deleted since the data is to be particularly deleted as a
function of that size.” App. Br. 18.
3 The Examiner explains that such deletion is to enable “other processes/
programs that need to be run in memory or other/ newer data that needs to be
stored in memory.” Ans. 12.
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Appeal 2015-004209
Application 13/368,896
Accordingly, and based on the record presented, we do not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1 and 14, nor of claims 2—13
which depend (directly or indirectly) from claim 1.
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—14 is reversed.
REVERSED
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