Ex Parte KomsiDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 14, 201712331971 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 14, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 12/331,971 12/10/2008 Asko M. Komsi P2978US00 3611 11764 7590 Ditthavong & Steiner, P.C. 44 Canal Center Plaza Suite 322 Alexandria, VA 22314 11/16/2017 EXAMINER HAILU, TADESSE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2173 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/16/2017 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): docket@dcpatent.com Nokia. IPR @ nokia. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ASKO M. KOMSI Appeal 2015-006281 Application 12/331,971 Technology Center 2100 Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JUSTIN BUSCH, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2015-006281 Application 12/331,971 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1—19, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part. THE INVENTION The application is directed to “[a] method, apparatus and computer program product... to facilitate the configuration of a display screen.” (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative: 1. An apparatus comprising a processor configured to: receive a request to configure a display screen; provide for presentation of a setup screen to facilitate the configuration of the display screen, the setup screen defining a plurality of display channels and a time scale for the display channels; receive an indication of a user interface component configured to generate information to be presented in a respective display channel commencing at a respective time, wherein the user interface component comprises a widget; and provide for presentation of the display screen comprising the plurality of display channels and including information generated by the user interface component in the respective display channel commencing at the respective time. 1 Appellant identifies Nokia Corporation as the real party in interest. (See App. Br. 1.) 2 Appeal 2015-006281 Application 12/331,971 THE REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Rodriguez et al. US 2002/0049978 A1 Apr. 25, 2002 Rodriguez US 2003/0005447 Al Jan. 2, 2003 Park US 2009/0132960 Al May 21, 2009 THE REJECTIONS 1. Claims 1, 3—6, 9, and 11—19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Rodriguez ’447. (See Final Act. 4—7.) 2. Claim 2 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rodriguez ’447. (See Final Act. 8.) 3. Claims 7 and 8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rodriguez ’447 and Rodriguez ’978. (See Final Act. 8— 9.) 4. Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Rodriguez ’447 and Park. (See Final Act. 9.) ANALYSIS Anticipation of Claims 1, 3—6, 9, and 11—19 Appellant argues Rodriguez ’447 does not anticipate claim 1 because it “does not expressly disclose ‘receiving a request to configure a display screen.’” (App. Br. 7, emphasis omitted.) The Examiner responds that the Rodriguez ’447 disclosure of a set-top box that receives a request for presentation of one of a plurality of selectable bi-directional services meets this claim limitation. (See Ans. 8.) We agree with the Examiner that 3 Appeal 2015-006281 Application 12/331,971 allowing a user to select content, as described in the reference, does disclose “receiving a request to configure a display screen.” This finding is consistent with Appellant’s disclosure, which describes the “configuring” as selecting content to be displayed on a particular portion of a screen. (See Spec. 8:24—9:15.) Appellant further argues “Rodriguez does not disclose or suggest receiving an indication of a user interface component configured to generate information to be presented in a respective display channel commencing at a respective time, wherein the user interface component comprises a widget in the manner claimed.” (App. Br. 7.) The Examiner disagrees, referencing the bi-directional services of the reference. (See Ans. 9—10.) We agree with the Examiner. Appellant’s Specification states that “[a] widget may generically reference the user interface generated by one or more applications or services that are currently active” and that “[wjidgets may include the user interfaces of a wide variety of applications or services, such as the user interfaces of an email application, a calendar application, a calculator application, a dictionary application, a flight tracker application, a stock market tracker application, or the like.” (Spec. 11:4—9.) In view of this description, we conclude that the bi-directional services2 of Rodriguez ’447 would include user interface components” comprising “widgets,” as claimed, because they would include a “user interface generated by one or 2 See Rodriguez ’447 1 114 (“Examples of bi-directional services . . . include, but are not limited to, those provided by the following applications: personalized expert advice, personalized adult entertainment, personalized education, or personalized medical assistance.”). 4 Appeal 2015-006281 Application 12/331,971 more applications or services” (App. Br. 7) to facilitate the bi-directional communication. Because we are unpersuaded by Appellant’s arguments, we sustain the Section 102 rejection of claim 1, as well as the same rejection of claims 3—6, 9, and 11—19, which are not argued separately. Obviousness of Claims 2, 7, 8, and 10 Claim 2 recites that “the apparatus [of claim 1] is a mobile device.” Appellant argues “[t]he Office Action simply asserts that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to utilize a mobile device in place of a stationary terminal or a computer of Rodriguez [’447],” that “nothing within the Rodriguez reference indicates such a modification would even be desired,” and that “the disclosure of Rodriguez [’447] seems to suggest that the alleged apparatus is intended to be stationary as it is directed to a program guide for accessing bi-directional services in a television system.” (App. Br. 8.) The Examiner responds that “Rodriguez [’447] clearly describes the computing device of DHCT or the set-top box can be any computing device with a display (paragraphs 0065, 0070, and 0159)” and that “simple substitution of one known element (computing device) for another (mobile device) would yield a predictable result, i.e., interacting display.” (Ans. 11.) We find the record insufficient to support the Examiner’s conclusion that the description of a set-top box in the Rodriguez ’447 application, which was filed in 2001, would include a mobile device. We also find the record insufficient to support a conclusion that use of a mobile device in place of the Rodriguez set-top box would have been a simple substitution of one known element for another, because the Examiner has pointed to no 5 Appeal 2015-006281 Application 12/331,971 evidence that such a substitution could have been made at the time of the 2008 filing of the instant application. For these reasons, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 2 as obvious in light of Rodriguez ’447. Regarding claims 7 and 8, Appellant argues “the applied references are silent” with respect to “wherein the processor is further configured to receive instructions to alter a size of a respective display channel upon the display screen, and wherein the processor is further configured to receive instructions to drag and drop the widget among two or more display channels” and “wherein the processor is configured to receive instructions to alter a size of a respective display channel by receiving input via the setup screen altering.” (App. Br. 9, emphasis omitted.) We find these arguments unpersuasive because “[a] statement which merely points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for separate patentability of the claim.” 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv); see In reLovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“[W]e hold that the Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the prior art.”). We further note that the Examiner made additional findings regarding these claims in the Answer, to which Appellant does not respond. (See Ans. 11—12.) We accordingly sustain the Section 103 rejection of claims 7 and 8, as well as the Section 103 rejection of claim 10, for which no other arguments are offered. 6 Appeal 2015-006281 Application 12/331,971 DECISION The rejections of claims 1 and 3—19 are affirmed. The rejection of claim 2 is reversed. 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-IN-PART 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation