Ex Parte Lindberg et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 31, 201813866455 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 31, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/866,455 04/19/2013 10949 7590 09/05/2018 Nokia Corporation and Alston & Bird LLP c/o Alston & Bird LLP Bank of America Plaza, 101 South Tryon Street Suite 4000 Charlotte, NC 28280-4000 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Phillip Lindberg 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 042933/427715 8156 EXAMINER HAILU, TADESSE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2173 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/05/2018 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): usptomail@alston.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte NOKIA CORPORA TION1 Appeal2018-000040 Application 13/866,455 Technology Center 2100 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and AMBER L. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judges. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-7, 10-16, 18, and 22-24, all the pending claims in the present application. Claims 8, 9, 17, and 19-21 are canceled (see Claims Appendix). We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We REVERSE. The present invention relates generally to transitioning a touch screen device from an idle mode to an active mode (see Spec., Abstract). 1 Phillip Lindberg and Sarni Niemela are listed as the inventors. Appeal2018-000040 Application 13/866,455 Claim 11 is illustrative: 11. A method, comprising: causing a touch screen display of a device to display, when the device is in a locked mode, a first application area at a first location representing a first application and a second application area at a second location representing a second application; enabling, when the device is in the locked mode, a user to provide touch input from a third location to the first location in order to select the first application area; enabling, when the device is in the locked mode, a user to provide touch input from the third location to the second location in order to select the second application area; wherein: if the user selects the first application area, when the device transitions from the locked mode to an unlocked mode, the first application is activated; and if the user selects the second application area, when the device transitions from the locked mode to the unlocked mode, the second application is activated. Appellants appeal the following rejections: RI. Claims 1--4, 7, 10-13, 16, 18, and 22-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Forstall (US 2008/0220752 Al, Sept. 11, 2008) and Bodepudi (US 2007/0016958 Al, Jan. 18, 2007); R2. Claims 5, 6, 14, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Forstall, Bodepudi, and Ording (US 2003/0184587 Al, Oct. 2, 2003). We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellants, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). 2 Appeal2018-000040 Application 13/866,455 ANALYSIS Rejection under§ 103(a) Issue: Did the Examiner err in finding that Forstall and Bodepudi collectively teach or suggest touch input from a third location to the first/second location in order to select the first/second application area, as set forth in claim 1 ? Appellants contend that: F orstall deliberately provides a separate unlock images 3 02 for each of the notification icons 5302Q--5302T ... and that each of the notification icons 5302Q--5302T has its own channel along which an unlock image 302 may be moved. . .. This, in itself, teaches away from the use of a single unlock image 302 that could be dragged to a multiplicity of different notification icons. (App. Br. 8-9) ( emphasis added). Appellants further contend that "[t]here is no suggestion or teaching in Bodepudi that the user should be required to provide a dragging input from a single common 'third' location in order to open application A or application D" (App. Br. 10). We find that Appellants have not sufficiently shown that Forstall teaches away from using a single unlocking mechanism for all applications because Appellants do not establish that Forstall criticizes, discredits, or otherwise discourages the use of a common/single mechanism for activating applications. "[T]he prior art's mere disclosure of more than one alternative does not constitute a teaching away from any of these alternative because such disclosure does not criticize, discredit, or otherwise discourage the solution claimed .... " In re Fulton, 391 F.3d 1195, 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2004). However, we agree with Appellants that Bodepudi fails to make up for the deficiency of Forstall because Bodepudi also fails to teach/suggest "a 3 Appeal2018-000040 Application 13/866,455 dragging input from a single common 'third' location in order to open application A or application D" (App. Br. 10). The Examiner finds that Bodepudi "discloses unlock icon location, a third location, wherein the user touches said icon from this third location to unlock/activate a first or second application" (Final Act. 7). The Examiner further finds that "Forstall includes several unlocking icons to each respective applications. What is missing from Forstall is a single unlocking icon (at 'third location') to unlock each application .... Bodepudi [teaches] the missing single unlocking icon (unlock icon Fig. 6)" (Ans. 4). However, Bodepudi merely discloses in Fig. 6 that "user interface 600 includes an unlock icon 610 . ... Responsive to a user selection of unlock icon 610, selective lock application 208 triggers a password entry window ... responsive to entry of an authorized password, selective lock application 208 closes any application windows" (i-f 52; see also ,r 56) ( emphasis added). In other words, even if Bodepudi discloses using a common unlock icon, Bodepudi's common unlock icon 610 is selected, instead of dragged, and is being used to "close" applications, instead of activating the applications, as required by the claims. In other words, we agree with Appellants that Bodepudi unlock icon 610 fails to provide "touch input in each case [that] begins at a common location ( the third location) and continues to another location ( the first/second location) which represents a particular application" (Reply Br. 3), i.e., no dragging motion is disclosed. Instead, a user in Bodepudi "may select unlock icon 610 by positioning cursor 612 over unlock icon 610 and entering an input" (Bodepudi, ,r 52). However, representative claim 11 4 Appeal2018-000040 Application 13/866,455 requires, inter alia, enabling a user to provide touch input from a third location to the first/second location (see claim 11) ( emphasis added). Regarding activation of applications, we further agree with Appellants that Bodepudi "includes 'a selectable link 622 associated with application A and a selectable link 624 associated with application D"' (Reply Br. 2) and "the actuation of selectable link 622,624 is not dependent upon the unlock icon 610" (id. at 3). Thus, it appears that Bodepudi, like Forstall, uses a different link for each respective application to actually activate the respective applications (see Bodepudi ,r 49; see also Bodepudi's Fig. 5). Thus, we disagree with the Examiner's finding that Bodepudi teaches a single unlocking icon (at "third location") to unlock each application, i.e., touch input from a third location to the first/second location in order to select the first/second application, wherein the first/second application is activated, as recited in each of the independent claims. The Examiner also has not found any of the other references of record teach this feature. Since we agree with at least one of the arguments advanced by Appellants, we need not reach the merits of Appellants' other arguments. Accordingly, we will not sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of claims 1-7, 10-16, 18, and 22-24. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's§ I03(a) rejections RI and R2. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation