Ex Parte Ogino et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 23, 2009

10123515 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 23, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
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Ex parte HIROKAZU OGINO and ATSUSHI KOTAKE
____________

Appeal 2009-005172
Application 10/123,515
Technology Center 3600
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Decided: September 23, 2009
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Before: MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and BIBHU
R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges.

CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2009-005172
Application 10/123,515

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 14 and 15.
We have jurisdiction to review the case under 35 U.S.C. §§ 134 and 6
(2002). The Appellants appeared for an oral hearing on September 9, 2009.
The claimed invention is directed to medical care support system.
(Spec. 1).
Claim 14, reproduced below, is further illustrative of the claimed
subject matter.
14. A medical support system,
comprising:
an online terminal, disposed at a medical
institution;
a sensor or probe, connected to the online
terminal and adapted to detect a biological signal
of a living body; and
a server, disposed at a medical application
service provider, and communicatively connected
to the online terminal via a wide-area
communication network, wherein:
the online terminal comprises a first
transmitter, operable to transmit the biological
signal to the server via the wide-area
communication network; and
the server comprises:
a processor, operable to process the
biological signal transmitted from the online
terminal, thereby generating biological signal data;
and
a second transmitter, operable to transmit
the biological signal data to the online terminal via
the wide-area communication network.
The reference of record relied upon by the Examiner as
evidence of obviousness is:
Appeal 2009-005172
Application 10/123,515

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Riff US 2002/0082480 A1 Jun. 27, 2002
Claims 14 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being
anticipated by Riff.
OPINION
We have carefully reviewed the rejections on appeal in light of the
arguments of the Appellants and the Examiner. As a result of this review,
we have reached the conclusion that the applied prior art does not establish
the prima facie obviousness of the claimed subject matter. Therefore the
rejections on appeal are reversed. Our reasons follow.
The following comprise our findings of fact with respect to the scope
and content of the prior art and the differences between the prior art and the
claimed subject matter. Riff discloses a medical device system that includes
a device 14 that is implanted in a patient ([0022]; Fig. 1). The device 14
transmits data to an external remote monitoring instrument 44 ([0036]; Fig.
6). This data is sent from the instrument 44 through a communication
instrument 365 to a server 405 and then to a physician 483 ([0037; 0039]).
The server 405 also sends data to a website 807 [0058]. The patient can
access the website 807 to receive data [0059)]. The physician can receive
and send information to a healthcare network 510 [0041].
The disagreement between the Appellants and the Examiner is with
respect to whether Riff discloses an online terminal disposed at a medical
institution having a first transmitter operable to transmit the biological signal
from the sensor or probe to the server as required by claim 14. In the
Examiner’s rationale, the physician terminal 483 is an online terminal
connected, although not directly, to the sensor or probe 44 (Ans. 7 to 8). We
agree with the Examiner that the physician terminal 483 is an online
Appeal 2009-005172
Application 10/123,515

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terminal disposed at a medical institution and that this terminal is connected
to the probe as recited in claim 14. In this regard we note that the claim does
not recite that the probe is directly connected to the online terminal or
similar limiting language. However, there is no disclosure in Riff that the
physician terminal 483 has a transmitter for transmitting biological signals
from the probe to the server 405. Rather, the biological signals are sent from
the probe through a transmitter 44 and connection 365 to the server. It is the
server which once it receives the biological signals and processes the signals
to create biological data sends this biological data to the physician terminal
405. Therefore we are constrained to reverse the rejection on appeal.

CONCLUSION AND ORDER
The rejection of claims 14 and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) is
reversed.

REVERSED

hh

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