Ex Parte Kerr

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 28, 2016

12099863 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 28, 2016)

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
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
12/099,863 04/09/2008 Glenn M. Kerr CHA920070025US1 4998
45095 7590 12/30/2016
HOFFMAN WARNTOK T T C EXAMINER
540 Broadway
4th Floor
NELSON, FREDA ANN
ALBANY, NY 12207 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3628
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/30/2016 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):
PTOCommunications@hoffmanwarnick.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GLENN M. KERR
Appeal 2014-008981
Application 12/099,863
Technology Center 3600
Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and
KENNETH G. SCHOPFER, Administrative Patent Judges.
CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s
final decision rejecting claims 1—21. We have jurisdiction over the appeal
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
Appeal 2014-008981
Application 12/099,863
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method for screening passengers, comprising:
providing a third party service to collect profile information from a
user and provide the user with a unique ID;
submitting the unique ID from the user to a reservation system
when the user books a reservation, wherein the reservation system
collects only the unique ID for identification;
passing the unique ID from the reservation system to an agency in
response to booking a reservation;
submitting the unique ID from the agency to the third party service
and returning associated profile information to the agency;
checking, in response to the submitting, the associated profile
information against a watch list within the agency and generating a
screening level for the user based on the associated profile information
and the watch list; and
communicating the screening level to a screening agent, wherein
the screening level indicates a level of screening to be performed on the
user.
Appellant(s) appeal the following rejection(s):
1. Claims 1,7, 11, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) first paragraph, as
failing to comply with the written description requirement.
2. Claims 1,7, 11, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) second paragraph, as
being indefinite.
3. Claims 1—6 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Hodges
(Hodges et al., US 2006/0206351 Al, Sept. 14, 2006), view of Block
(Block et al., US 2003/0055689 Al, Mar. 20, 2003) and in further view
of “DHSfact sheet: CAPPS II at a Glance”, 12 February 2004, dsh.gov,
2 pages.
4. Claims 7—18, 20, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Hodges, Block, DHS Fact Sheet, and further in view of Singel, “TSA
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Appeal 2014-008981
Application 12/099,863
Unveils Planned Overhaul of Airport Screening,” 10 August 2007,
wired.com, 2 pages.
5. Claim 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)as being unpatentable over Hodges,
Block, DHS Fact Sheet, Singel, and Hunter (Hunter et al., US
2006/0293971 Al, Dec 28, 2006).
ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in rejecting the claims because the references do
not disclose passing the unique ID from the reservation system to an agency
in response to booking a reservation?
ANALYSIS
Written description
We will not sustain this rejection because we agree with the Appellant
that paragraph 16 of the Specification shows that the inventor had possession
of the invention in which a user is given a unique ID that can be used to
make future reservations. Paragraph 16 also discloses that only a single
alphanumeric ID is needed to make a reservation. The Examiner finds that it
is not disclosed that the unique ID is the same as the alphanumeric ID. As
paragraph 16 discloses that the unique ID is given for the purpose of making
reservations, and that the alphanumeric ID is all that is needed to make
reservations, it is disclosed that the unique ID and the alphanumeric ID are
the same.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain this rejection.
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Appeal 2014-008981
Application 12/099,863
Indefiniteness
The Examiner holds that it is not clear how reservations are made if
the system collects only the unique ID for identification and doesn’t collect
other information used for making reservations.
We agree with the Appellant that the claims require that no more
identification information is needed but does not limit other information
such as the date, destination etc. for making a reservation.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain this rejection.
Obviousness
Claims 1—6
The Appellant argues that the references do not disclose passing an ID
from the reservation system to an agency in response to booking a
reservation. We agree.
The Examiner relies on paragraphs 6, 22, and 23 of Hodges for
teaching this subject matter (Fin. Act. 6).
We find that paragraph 6 of Hodges discloses that a traveler can
become a registered traveler by submitting to a background check. Once
approved as a registered traveler, an identifier is provided to the registered
traveler that is a string of alphanumeric characters. There is no disclosure in
this paragraph of a reservation system passing this identifier to an agency in
response to booking a reservation.
We find that paragraphs 22 and 23 of Hodges disclose that one can
become a registered traveler by providing detailed personal information and
in some cases biometrics. After the information is provided, a background
check is performed. The process can be started by going to enrollment
stations such as police stations, fire stations etc. where customer personal
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Appeal 2014-008981
Application 12/099,863
data, customer payment data and biometric data is gathered. There is no
disclosure in this portion of Hodges of passing a unique ID from a
reservation system to an agency.
We also find that Hodges discloses that the boarding pass of the
registered traveler includes a tag thereon so that the customer can enter a fast
security checkpoint lane [30]. As such, the identifier disclosed in Hodges is
provided to a traveler before making a reservation. This identifier is not
passed from the reservation system to an agency. Rather, the agency has
provided the identifier as a result of a previously performed background
check.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 1 and claims 2—6 dependent therefrom.
Claims 7—14, 17—18 and 20—21
In regard to the rejection of claim 7, the Examiner relies on
paragraphs 22 and 41 of Hodges for teaching program code that provides
information to a government controlled watch list system in response to an
inputted unique ID obtained from the airline reservation system.
We find that paragraph 22 does not disclose providing a unique ID
from an airline reservation system to a government controlled watch list
system. As we found above, paragraph 22 discloses the process for
receiving an identifier in response to becoming a registered traveler but does
not disclose that the reservation system provides this identifier to an agency
much less to a controlled watch list system.
We find that paragraph 41 discloses that a database is maintained of
registered travelers and that a search may be made on the database by
agencies such as the FBI or DHS to determine if a person is on the watch-
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Appeal 2014-008981
Application 12/099,863
list. However, this paragraph does not disclose that the registered traveler
identifier is provided to these agencies from a reservations system.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 7 and claims 8—10 dependent therefrom.
We will also not sustain the rejection of claim 11 and claims 12—20
dependent therefrom and claim 21 because claims 11 and 21 also requires a
reservations system that passes the unique ID to a watch list service.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s § 112 and § 103 rejections.
ORDER
REVERSED
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