Ex Parte Okada et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Dec 20, 2010

11418929 (B.P.A.I. Dec. 20, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte SATOSHI OKADA and RYOTATSU IGA
_____________

Appeal 2009-010816
Application 11/418,929
Technology Center 2600
____________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, THOMAS S. HAHN,
and ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judges.

MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or for filing a request for rehearing,
as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 41.52, begins to run from the “MAIL DATE”
(paper delivery mode) or the “NOTIFICATION DATE” (electronic delivery
mode) shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this decision.
Appeal 2009-010816
Application 11/418,929

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of
claims 1-3 and 5-7. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

INVENTION
Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a filtering section 106,
disposed between a data collecting and a processing section 101 and a
database 102, which applies a conditioning process on alarms from a plant
stored in the database 102. The filtering section 106 executes a filtering
process based on if-then rule conditions of a filter condition defining section
107. See Spec. 8:17–9:5; Abstract.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on
appeal:
1. An alarm control apparatus which collects alarms from a plant and
handles the alarms, the alarm control apparatus comprising: a defining
section for defining a conditioning process which is executed when
performing a filtering process on the alarms; and a filtering section for
performing the filtering process on the collected alarms in accordance with
the conditioning process defined by the defining section,
wherein the conditioning process includes a stop of delivery of at least
one of the alarms.

THE REJECTION
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Bristol US 6,690,274 B1 Feb. 10, 2004
The following rejection is before us for review:
Appeal 2009-010816
Application 11/418,929

3
The Examiner rejected claims 1-3 and 5-7 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
as being anticipated by Bristol.

ISSUE
The pivotal issue is whether Bristol teaches “a stop of delivery of at
least one of the alarms” as recited in representative claim 1.

ANALYSIS
Appellants argue (Reply Br. 4) that Bristol does not teach the
limitation of “a stop of delivery of at least one of the alarms,” contrary to the
Examiners’ contention (Ans. 5), because according to the claimed invention,
a higher level alarm need not occur first and prior to the conditioning and
filtering processes in order to produce the stoppage of at least one of the
alarms. We note that Appellants do not contest the Examiners’ assertion
(Ans. 5) that Appellants are charged with the knowledge of the entire
disclosure of the cited reference.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument. Representative claim
1 does not preclude a higher level alarm occurring prior to stoppage of a
causal or consequential alarm. Thus, we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 5)
that the stop of delivery of a causal or consequential alarm as taught by
Bristol (col. 28, ll. 17-26) does meet the claim limitation of “a stop of
delivery of at least one of the alarms.” We are also not persuaded by
Appellants’ argument that “suppressing” the alarm as stated in Bristol (col.
28, ll. 17-26) means reducing it in magnitude rather than stopping it, because
Appellants have not cited any section of Bristol for supporting such a
proposition.
Appeal 2009-010816
Application 11/418,929

4
Accordingly, we will sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
representative claim 1 and claims 2, 3, and 5-7 which fall with claim 1 as no
additional arguments of patentability were presented with respect to these
claims.

CONCLUSION
Bristol teaches “a stop of delivery of at least one of the alarms” as
recited in representative claim 1.

ORDER
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-3 and 5-7 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)(1)(v).

AFFIRMED

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