Ex Parte King et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 29, 2017

14297525 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 29, 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.
14/297,525 06/05/2014 David William King 42178-702.302 9431
21971 7590 10/03/2017
WILSON, SONSINI, GOODRICH & ROSATI
650 PAGE MILL ROAD
PALO ALTO, CA 94304-1050
EXAMINER
ERB, NATHAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3628
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/03/2017 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):
patentdocket @ wsgr.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DAVID WILLIAM KING
and
ALEXANDER SCHWARZ
Appeal 2016-004878
Application 14/297,525
Technology Center 3600
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and
HUNG H. BUI, Administrative Patent Judges.
KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claim 16. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appeal 2016-004878
Application 14/297,525
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention is directed to “single bay parking meters,
devices therefor and a method of upgrading a parking meter (Spec. 12).
Independent claim 16 (the only claim on appeal), is reproduced below.
16. A single space parking meter comprising:
a housing base;
a removable single space parking meter device at least
partially and removably received within a housing base of a
single space parking meter, the device comprising:
a plurality of parking meter device components
comprising:
a display for displaying parking information;
a wireless payment reader comprising:
a radio frequency electronic purse reader;
a wireless payment reader signal receiver located
at the display and coupled to the wireless payment
reader; and
a housing exposed to an external environment coupled to
the housing base and the removable single space parking
meter device.
REFERENCES and REJECTION
The Examiner rejected claim 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon
the teachings of Chauvin et al. (US 2003/0112151 Al, published June 19,
2003), Zalewski et al. (US 2005/0040951 Al, published Feb. 24, 2005), and
Ratnakar (US 2006/0152349 Al, published July 13, 2006).
ANALYSIS
Appellants contend the Examiner erred in finding (1) Zalewski
teaches or suggests the claimed “wireless payment reader comprising a radio
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Application 14/297,525
frequency electronic purse reader” (App. Br. 9—10), (2) Ratnakar teaches or
suggests the claimed “wireless payment reader signal receiver located at the
display” (App. Br. 10-11), and (3) articulated reasoning for combining the
cited references (App. Br. 11—12). We do not agree.
We agree with and adopt the Examiner’s findings as our own (Final
Act. 3^4; Ans. 2—16). We provide the following for clarification. We agree
with the Examiner (Ans. 2—3) that Zalewski’s paragraphs 89—91 teach a
parking meter that includes an RFID. As the Examiner finds, the language
of claim 16 does not describe the particular information that is transferred
between the parking meter and external device using the RFID (Ans. 3).
Further, because Zalewski’s “RFID interrogator reads information that is
part of a wireless payment process, the RFID interrogator may be called a
‘wireless payment reader,”’ because Zalewski’s cell phone “may be an
electronic purse, and the RFI D interrogator . . . reads information from the
cell phone” Zalewski’s RFI D interrogator “may be called an ‘electronic
purse reader,” and because Zalewski’s “RFI D technology uses radio
frequency communication, the RFID interrogator . . . may be called a ‘radio
frequency electronic purse reader’” (Ans. 2). Appellants’ Specification,
paragraph 51 provides the only reference to a radio frequency purse reader
(“a card reader interface 60 for cards having chips and magnetic strips and
for RF electronic purses, a receiver 62 for signals from such RF electronic
purses” 151, Fig. 8). This is similar to and reads on Zalewski’s teachings.
Thus, we agree with the Examiner that Zalewski teaches a wireless payment
reader comprising a radio frequency electronic purse reader (Ans. 3).
We also agree with and adopt the Examiner’s findings that Ratnakar
teaches “a wireless payment reader signal receiver located at the display”
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Appeal 2016-004878
Application 14/297,525
(Final Act. 3—\\ Ans. 8; Ratnakar 126, RF reader 101 (Fig. 2)). We agree
with the Examiner Appellants’ Specification provides no guidance as to
what “at” means (see, e.g. Ans. 10). Paragraph 47 of Appellants’
Specification provides “An infrared receiver and transmitter 27” is shown in
Figure 1. This receiver is found next to the display as is Ratnakar’s RF
receiver. Appellants assert “the RF reader (101) of the embodiment [in
Ratnakar] emphasized in the answer is not at the display (105), because
there are intervening structures between the display and the RF reader,
namely a control switch (111). It is clear that the RF reader of Ratnakar is at
the control switch (111) — not the display” (Reply Br. 7). However,
Appellants’ claim is open-ended and recites “comprising” allowing for
intervening structures. Thus, the Examiner has not erred in finding
Ratnakar’s receiver is “at” the display (see Ans. 8—11).
We also agree with the Examiner that the combination of the
references is proper, and the Examiner has provided adequate rationale for
the combination, contrary to Appellants’ assertions (Ans. 12—16)
Thus, for the above reasons, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
claim 116 over the combination of the cited references.1
1 Appellants state this application is intended to provoke an interference and
that by rejecting claim 16, the Examiner improperly determined inventorship
(App. Br. 14). The Examiner noted the suggestion of an interference in the
Final Action (“Examiner will consider any potential interference issues after
examination of this application has otherwise been completed. See MPEP
2303 (‘An interference should rarely be suggested until examination is
completed on all other issues’)” (Final Act. 2)). The Examiner also correctly
noted there is no rule requiring “a previously issued patent to control
allowability” (Ans. 16).
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Appeal 2016-004878
Application 14/297,525
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claim 16 is 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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