Ex Parte OswaldDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 28, 201613827764 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 28, 2016) Copy Citation 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. 13/827,764 03/14/2013 GARY J. OSWALD CM16179 1496 22917 7590 12/30/2016 MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS, INC. IP Law Docketing 500 W. Monroe 43rd Floor Chicago, IL 60661 EXAMINER ELNOUBI, SAID M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2644 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/30/2016 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): U S Adocketing @ motorolasolutions. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte GARY J. OSWALD Appeal 2016-000780 Application 13/827,764 Technology Center 2600 Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1—18. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 Appellant identifies Motorola Solutions, Inc. as the real party in interest. Br. 3. Appeal 2016-000780 Application 13/827,764 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Invention Appellant’s invention relates to “security social networks, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for choosing devices within a security social network.” Spec. 12. The Specification explains that in certain circumstances there may be thousands of devices located near a security event. For example, if a crime occurs at a crowded sports venue, acquiring data, such as images or audio, about the crime from all devices near the event may overwhelm the system. Spec. 14. The invention addresses this problem by filtering devices within a security social network so that an enormous amount of data is not received and so that undesired images are not provided by member devices. Spec. 1 6. The devices can be filtered by, for example, determining whether a device has particular capabilities (e.g., image quality). See Spec. 120. Exemplary independent claim 1 is reproduced below. 1. A method comprising the steps of: determining by a processor that an event has occurred; determining an area of interest; determining desired mobile telephone capabilities; determining mobile telephones within the area of interest; determining a subset of the mobile telephones that have desired mobile telephone capabilities; requesting images from the subset mobile telephones based on the mobile telephones’ capabilities; and receiving images from at least some of the subset of mobile telephones. 2 Appeal 2016-000780 Application 13/827,764 References and Rejections 1. Claims 1, 3, 10, and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Daniell (US 8,457,612 Bl; June 4, 2013) in view of Taylor et al. (US 8,553,068 B2; Oct. 8, 2013). 2. Claims 2 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Daniell, Taylor, Takeuchi (US 2013/0063615 Al; Mar. 14, 2013) and Ortiz (US 7,782,363 B2; Aug. 24, 2010). 3. Claims 4 and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Daniell, Taylor, Hicks, III (US 8,626,210 B2; Jan. 7, 2014 (“Hicks”)). 4. Claims 5, 6, 14, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Daniell, Taylor, and Arledge et al. (US 7,792,256 Bl; Sept. 7, 2010 (“Arledge”)). 5. Claims 7 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Daniell, Taylor, and Choi (US 6,879,570 Bl; Apr. 12, 2005). 6. Claims 8, 9, 17, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Daniell, Taylor, Choi, and Draves, Jr. et al. (US 2010/0118727 Al; May 13, 2010 (“Draves”)). ANALYSIS Claim 1 recites “requesting images from the subset mobile telephones based on the mobile telephones’ capabilities.” Br. 9 (Claims App’x). The Examiner finds Taylor teaches or suggests this limitation by disclosing that a conference bridge may send a “request to [a] plurality of devices based on 3 Appeal 2016-000780 Application 13/827,764 [a] media layering plan” where the “media layering plan [is] based on the media capability” of the devices. Final Act. 3^4 Appellant argues “the system of Taylor requests images from each endpoint [i.e. each device]. Because of this, Taylor fails to teach or otherwise suggest the Applicants’ claimed step of requesting images from a subset of mobile telephones based on the mobile telephone’s capabilities.” Br. 6 (citing Taylor 7:29—31). In other words, according to Appellant, Taylor requests images from all endpoints rather than a subset of them. We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s arguments. Instead, we agree with and adopt as our own the Examiner’s findings and conclusions as set forth the in the Final Action from which this appeal was taken (Final Act. 2— 4), and in the Examiner’s Answer (Ans. 2—3). We have considered Appellant’s arguments, but do not find them persuasive of error. We provide the following explanation for emphasis. As the Examiner indicates, in arguing that the conference bridge of Taylor sends requests to all endpoints rather than a subset of endpoints, Appellant is relying upon an embodiment different than the one relied upon by the Examiner. Ans. 2. The Examiner relies upon an embodiment described in column 9 of Taylor where the conference bridge is configured with a minimum capability set, and “remove[s] an endpoint from the media conference if its media capabilities do not meet (or fall below) the minimal capability.” Taylor 9:5—11. The conference bridge then “receives an input media stream from at least one of the plurality of conference devices.” Taylor 9:54—55. Contrary to Appellant’s argument, we agree with the Examiner that by disclosing that a conference bridge removes endpoint 4 Appeal 2016-000780 Application 13/827,764 devices that do not meet a certain minimum capability requirement, Taylor teaches or suggests “requesting images from the subset mobile telephones based on the mobile telephones’ capabilities” as recited in claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. We also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2—18, for which Appellant does not present any additional and separate arguments for patentability. See Br. 7. DECISION The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—18 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal maybe extended. See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation