Ex Parte Massod

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Dec 14, 2004

09334574 (B.P.A.I. Dec. 14, 2004)

1
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today
was not written for publication and is not binding precedent
of the Board.
Paper No. 31
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
__________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
__________
Ex parte PAUL E. MASSOD
__________
Appeal No. 2004-0023
Application 09/334,574
__________
ON BRIEF
__________
Before JERRY SMITH, RUGGIERO, and MACDONALD, Administrative
Patent Judges.
RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.
ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING
Appellant requests that we reconsider our decision of August
17, 2004 wherein we sustained the Examiner’s rejection of claims
1-4, 6-16, and 18-36 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We have
reconsidered our decision of August 17, 2004 in light of
Appellant’s comments in the Request for Rehearing, and we find no
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Application No. 09/334,574
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error therein. We, therefore, decline to make any changes in our
prior decision for the reasons which follow.
Appellant initially contends that our prior decision
misinterprets the language of independent claim 1 as well as
misconstrues the teachings of the Markman reference. We find no
error, however, in our interpretation of the disclosure of
Markman, nor in our conclusions drawn therefrom, as expressed in
our prior decision.
Appellant reiterates the contention that, unlike the claimed
invention which operates on manually grouped articles to verify
that the grouping is correct, Markman is operating on ungrouped
articles which are reassembled into groups after processing. In
making this argument, Appellant relies on the claim language
which recites that verification is performed on articles to
verify that articles “which were physically grouped by a manual
or automated grouping process into a physically grouped order,
belong to the physically grouped order . . . .” In Appellant’s
view, this claim language must be interpreted as requiring
verification after articles have been manually grouped after
processing, i.e. after assembly.
We remain, however, of the opinion that there is nothing in
the language of claim 1 which requires the interpretation urged
Appeal No. 2004-0023
Application No. 09/334,574
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by Appellant. We find nothing in the claim language which
requires that the stated manual grouping be performed at the
output side of the processing. Conversely, there is no claim
language which precludes the manual grouping from being performed
at the input side of the processing as urged by the Examiner.
With this is mind, we find no error in the interpretation of
Markman expressed in our prior decision, i.e., the reassembly
after processing operation disclosed by Markman is in fact
operating on articles “which were physically grouped” since the
articles were assigned into groups and tagged at the customer
input side. Further, although Markman does not use the
terminology “verification,” we fail to see why a successful
reassembly (Markman, column 8, lines 35-41) would not be a
“verification” that the reassembled group matches the grouping
assigned at the customer input side of the processing.
As to Appellant’s assertion that our prior decision cited no
passage from Markman that would support our interpretation that
Markman’s output side assembling relates to a physical grouping
at the input side, it is our view that the citation of any
particular passage is unnecessary since it is apparent to us that
the entire disclosure of Markman is directed to precisely this
feature. In other words, as illustrated in Figure 1 of Markman,
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Application No. 09/334,574
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a customer’s articles to be dry cleaned are physically grouped
and are tagged with coded identification. After processing, the
coded tags on the articles are scanned and reassembled into
groups corresponding to the original grouping with an indicator
light arrangement to “verify” that a group has successfully been
reassembled.
We further find no error in the conclusion reached in our
prior decision that the lighting indicator arrangement 92, 94 in
Markman provides a “positive” indication that a scanned item does
not belong in a particular grouped order. Although we don’t
necessarily agree or disagree with Appellant’s contention that
the system of Markman would not provide any positive indication
that an item was incorrectly placed when working on plural lots
with mixed groups, the simple fact remains that there is nothing
in the claim language directed to mixed lots and groups.
With respect to claims 3, 4, and 7, Appellant contends that
the Board erred in their analysis of Markman since, in
Appellant’s view, “. . . . Markman does not utilize a system that
possess [sic] ‘unique sequential identifications’ whether in the
form of bar codes and or machine readable text.” (Request, page
5). We do not agree. As discussed in our prior decision, the
tags illustrated in Figure 3 of Markman are unmistakably
Appeal No. 2004-0023
Application No. 09/334,574
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designated with sequential numbers (1, 2, 3, 4) and are clearly
capable of being read by a machine, i.e. they are machine
readable as claimed.
Lastly, we find no error in our prior decision which
concluded, with respect to claims 28-33, that the Examiner’s line
of reasoning in relation to the proposed combination of Markman
and Amacher establishes a prima facie case of obviousness which
has not been overcome by Appellant’s arguments and/or evidence.
Appellant’s assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, we remain
of the view, for all of the reasons discussed supra and in our
prior decision, that Markman does in fact disclose a
“verification” process as claimed, while Amacher provides a
teaching of indicating the successful or unsuccessful status of a
scanning operation.
In conclusion, based on the foregoing, we have granted
Appellant’s request to the extent that we have reconsidered our
decision of August 17, 2004, but we deny the request with respect
to making any changes therein.
Appeal No. 2004-0023
Application No. 09/334,574
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No time period for taking any subsequent action in
connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 CFR
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv)(effective September 13, 2004; 69 Fed. Reg.
49960 (August 12, 2004); 1286 Off. Gaz. Pat. and TM Office 21
(September 7, 2004)).
REHEARING/DENIED

JERRY SMITH )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO ) APPEALS AND
Administrative Patent Judge ) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
ALLEN R. MACDONALD )
Administrative Patent Judge )
JFR/dal
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Application No. 09/334,574
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