Ex Parte Lee

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 28, 2017

11353584 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 28, 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.
PD-205068 8232
EXAMINER
MONTOYA, OSCHTA I
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2421
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/353,584 02/14/2006
20991 7590 04/28/2017
THE DIRECTV GROUP, INC.
PATENT DOCKET ADMINISTRATION
CA/LA1 /A109
2230 E. IMPERIAL HIGHWAY
EL SEGUNDO, CA 90245
Sean S. Lee
04/28/2017 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SEAN S. LEE
Appeal 2015-004337
Application 11/353,584
Technology Center 2400
Before: THU A. DANG, ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, and JOHN A.
EVANS, Administrative Patent Judges.
MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2015-004337
Application 11/353,584
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1—
4, 8—10, 13—20, and 22—25. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
Appellant’s claimed invention is directed to a controller 60 coupled to
the non-volatile memory 74 and a tuner 64. The controller sets a time
window, receives information from the tuner 64, and stores the information
in the non-volatile memory 74 when the information is within the time
window. See Fig. 2; Spec. para. 30.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A receiving unit comprising:
a tuner;
a dynamic memory;
a non-volatile memory; and
a controller coupled to the dynamic memory, the non-volatile
memory and the tuner, said controller setting an airing time
window, receiving program guide data from the tuner, storing
program guide data for a program in the dynamic memory, and
writing the program guide data from the dynamic memory to the
non-volatile memory when the program guide data of the
dynamic memory indicates the program airs within the time
window and when the program guide data is not already stored
in the non-volatile memory.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Pietraszak US 6,990,677 B1 Jan. 24,2006
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Application 11/353,584
Rodriguez
Aratani
Ficco
Matsumoto
US 7,120,922 B2 Oct. 10, 2006
US 7,260,828 B2 Aug. 21, 2007
US 2002/0188956 A1 Dec. 12, 2002
US 2004/0075776 A1 Apr. 22, 2004
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1—4, 20, 24, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Aratani in view of Pietraszak.
Claims 10 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Aratani in view of Pietraszak and further in view of
Matsumoto.
Claim 15—19 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Aratani in view of Pietraszak in view of Ficco and further
in view of Rodriguez.
Claims 22 and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Aratani in view of Pietraszak as applied to claim 20
above, and further in view of Matsumoto.
The pivotal issue is whether the Examiner erred in finding that the
combination of Aratani and Pietraszak teaches or suggests the limitation of
a controller coupled to the dynamic memory, the non-volatile
memory and the tuner, said controller setting an airing time
window, receiving program guide data from the tuner, storing
program guide data for a program in the dynamic memory, and
writing the program guide data from the dynamic memory to the
non-volatile memory when the program guide data of the
dynamic memory indicates the program airs within the time
ISSUE
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Appeal 2015-004337
Application 11/353,584
window and when the program guide data is not already stored
in the non-volatile memory.
as recited in claim 1.
ANALYSIS
We adopt the Examiner’s findings in the Answer and Final Action and
we add the following primarily for emphasis. We note that if Appellant
failed to present arguments on a particular rejection, we will not unilaterally
review those uncontested aspects of the rejection. See Ex parte Frye, 94
USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential); Hyatt v. Dudas, 551 F.3d
1307, 1313—14 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (The Board may treat arguments Appellants
failed to make for a given ground of rejection as waived).
Appellant argues that Aratani mentions random access memory
(RAM), but is completely silent as to the RAM being dynamic memory
(App. Br. 7). Appellant notes that simple RAM is not the same as dynamic
memory, and asserts that the Examiner has ignored this distinction (App. Br.
7). Appellant notes that dynamic RAM (DRAM) is one type of RAM, but
Aratani is silent as to its RAM being DRAM or another type of dynamic
memory (App. Br. 7).
Appellant further argues that Pietraszak in no way describes the EPG
loader 60 as including dynamic memory (App. Br. 7). According to
Appellant, Pietraszak does not even include the word dynamic (App. Br. 7).
Moreover, Pietraszak is silent as to the EPG loader 60 including any type of
memory as alleged by the Examiner (App. Br. 7).
At the outset we note that disputed claim 1 recites “dynamic memory”
(see claim 1) and Appellant’s Specification discloses “a dynamic memory 72
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Application 11/353,584
such as RAM’ (Spec. para. 23, emphasis added). Thus, we see no error in
the Examiner’s mapping of RAM as a dynamic memory. Under the broadest
reasonable interpretation of the terms, we interpret “dynamic memory” as
recited in claim 1, in light of the Specification, as a memory which “acts as a
buffer” (see Spec. para. 30 stating “the dynamic memory may act as a buffer
for the program guide information”). We further note that there is no
ipsissimis verbis test for determining whether a reference discloses a claim
element, i.e., identity of terminology is not required. In re Bond, 910 F.2d
831, 832 (Fed. Cir. 1990). In other words, just because the reference does
not disclose the term “dynamic” it does not mean that it does not teach or
suggest dynamic memory. We further note that the claim only recites
“dynamic memory” and does not recite the term DRAM (see claim 1).
Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Aratani’s
system control unit 18 includes a RAM, which is used as a work memory
(col. 5,11. 41—43; Ans. 3), and system control unit 18 temporarily stores
EPG data to facilitate comparing version data of the received EPG data with
EPG data stored on hard disk 123 (col. 3,11. 45—48; Ans. 3). Thus, Aratani
discloses a dynamic memory in the form of RAM within system control unit
18 (Ans. 3) consistent with Appellant’s own Specification (Spec. para. 30).
We further agree with the Examiner that Pietraszak teaches EPG
services 40 of device 20 having pluggable modules EPG loaders 60, EPG
writer 43, storage 42, and EPG control 41 (col. 7,11. 63—66; Ans. 3). The
EPG loader 60 receives EPG data from a specified EPG data provider (col.
8,11. 1—4; Ans. 3). The EPG data that is written to storage 42 by EPG writer
43 must first be held at one of the EPG loader 60 as EPG writer 43 processes
EPG data from each loader 60 (Ans. 3—4). Thus, given the broadest
reasonable interpretation above, we agree with the Examiner that the EPG
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Application 11/353,584
loader 60 is also a “dynamic memory” as it only collects and stores received
EPG data for a short period before overwriting data (Ans. 4).
Appellant also argues that neither Aratani nor Pietraszak, nor their
combination, teaches or suggests a controller storing program guide data for
a program in the dynamic memory, setting an airing time window, and
writing the program guide data from the dynamic memory to the non­
volatile memory when the program guide data of the dynamic memory
indicates the program airs within the time window (App. Br. 8).
Furthermore, Appellant argues that Pietraszak is silent as to writing
program guide data from dynamic memory to storage 42 when the program
guide data of the dynamic memory indicates that the program airs within the
time window (App. Br. 9). Appellant also argues that Pietraszak is silent as
to storage 42 being non-volatile memory (App. Br. 9).
We do not agree. We agree with the Examiner’s findings that
Pietraszak teaches or suggests a controller (i.e., EPG writer 43 is responsible
for storing and enforcing the scaling of the EPG data; col. 8,11. 11—18)
setting a time window (i.e., a device application developer or a user may
choose a time period of 2 days to conserve memory even if the EPG data
source provides a 5 day block of EPG data; col. 3,11. 5—8) and storing the
information in the non-volatile memory (i.e., storage 42 is a database
containing EPG data) from the dynamic memory when the information is
within the time window (i.e., EPG writer 43 is responsible for storing and
enforcing the scaling of the EPG data, such that if EPG loader 60 provides
EPG writer 43 with EPG data that is not within the 2 day set time period,
EPG writer 43 will prevent the EPG data from being stored on storage 42)
(col. 8,11. 11—23; col. 6,11. 23—33; col. 6,1. 57 to col. 7,1. 39; and col. 3,11.
2—26; Ans. 5). We further note that Pietraszak’s lack of description of
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Application 11/353,584
storage 42 as non-volatile memory is of no merit since identity of
terminology is not required. In re Bond, 910 F.2d at 832.
On this record, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 and for
the same reasons the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2—4, 8—10, 13—20, and
22-25.
CONCLUSIONS
The Examiner did not err in finding that the combination of Aratani
and Pietraszak teaches or suggests the limitation of
a controller coupled to the dynamic memory, the non-volatile
memory and the tuner, said controller setting an airing time
window, receiving program guide data from the tuner, storing
program guide data for a program in the dynamic memory, and
writing the program guide data from the dynamic memory to the
non-volatile memory when the program guide data of the
dynamic memory indicates the program airs within the time
window and when the program guide data is not already stored
in the non-volatile memory.
as recited in claim 1.
DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—4, 8—10,
13—20, and 22—25 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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