Ex Parte Parthasarathy

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 6, 2017

13531786 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 6, 2017)

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.
13/531,786 06/25/2012 Sudarshan Parthasarathy H0034510 (002.2680) 6520
89955 7590 02/08/2017
HONEYWELL/LKGlobal
Patent Services
115 Tabor Road
P.O.Box 377
MORRIS PLAINS, NJ 07950
EXAMINER
KAN, YURI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3662
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/08/2017 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):
patentservices-us @ honey well, com
DL-ACS-SM-IP@Honeywell.com
docketing @LKGlobal.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SUDARSHAN PARTHASARATHY
Appeal 2015-000538
Application 13/531,7861
Technology Center 3600
Before LYNNE H. BROWNE, THOMAS F. SMEGAL, and
GORDON D. KINDER, Administrative Patent Judges.
SMEGAL, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Sudarshan Parthasarathy (Appellant) seeks our review under 35
U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s final rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of
claims 1, 2, 4, 7—11 and 19 as unpatentable over Lee (US 2011/0320068 Al,
pub. Dec. 29, 2011), Wilson (US 2008/0021648 Al, pub. Jan. 24, 2008),
Murphy (US 2003/0036827 Al, pub. Feb. 20, 2003), and Walter (US
2013/0013133 Al, pub. Jan. 10, 2013); of claims 3 and 20 as unpatentable
over Lee, Wilson, Murphy, Walter, and Yoshikoshi (US 2010/0318573 Al,
pub. Dec. 16, 2010); of claims 12, 14, and 16—18 as unpatentable over
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Honeywell
International, Inc. Br. 2.
Appeal 2015-000538
Application 13/531,786
Murphy, Wilson, and Walter; and of claim 13 as unpatentable over Murphy,
Wilson, Walter, and Yoshikoshi.2 We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Claims 1,12, and 19 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below
and illustrates the claimed subject matter, with disputed limitations
emphasized.
1. A method of executing a task associated with a flight
plan displayed on a navigation display in the form of an
interactive graphical image, the method comprising:
selecting the task;
generating symbology on the display graphically
representative of the task to be executed and characterized by at
least one adjustable parameter; and
adjusting at least a portion of the symbology by dragging
on the display to alter the at least one parameter;
wherein the at least one adjustable parameter is selected
from the group consisting of (1) a bearing of a segment of the
flight plan and (2) a flight plan offset.
ANALYSIS
Obviousness of claims 1, 2, 4, 7—11 and 19 over Lee, Wilson, Murphy,
and Walter
Appellant argues claims 1, 2, 4, 7—11 and 19 together in contesting the
rejection of these claims as obvious over Lee, Wilson, Murphy, and Walter.
See Appeal Br. 12—14; Reply Br. 2—5. We select claim 1 as the
2 Claims 5, 6, and 15 have been canceled. Appeal Br. 2.
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Application 13/531,786
representative claim for this group, and the remaining claims stand or fall
with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
While relying on Lee and Wilson for many of the limitations of claim
1, the Examiner finds that Lee does not teach, inter alia, selecting at least
one adjustable parameter “from the group consisting of a flight plan offset.”
Final Act. 2-4. However, the Examiner finds that Walter “teaches [a] flight
management system (FMS) that may also have controls allowing it to hold at
various settings, [such as] flying the aircraft at an offset trajectory among
other things,” (citing Walter 19); “teaches [that] the tactical parameter
controls 32 that may also include, by way of non-limiting example, an offset
flight plan selection window 54, and a data link request selection window
56,” (citing Walter 112, Fig. 2); and “teaches ... an entry into the offset
flight plan selection window 54 that may result in the navigation display
rendering a new parallel flight path as well as retaining the original path
showing the selected departure point and rejoin point,” (citing Walter 119,
Fig. 2), and reasons that
this is equivalent to adjusting or changing [a] parameter such as
flight plan offset, because entering into the offset flight plan
selection window that may result in the navigation display
rendering, or interpreting, or representing a new parallel flight
path as well as retaining the original path showing the selected
departure point and rejoin point is equivalent [to] adjusting or
changing a parameter or a value such as flight plan offset by
giving the claimed limitations and the prior art their broadest
reasonable interpretation.
Id. at 4.
Based on the foregoing, the Examiner determines that it would have
been obvious “to modify the teaching of Lee by adding and using the tactical
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Application 13/531,786
parameter controls including an offset flight plan selection window as taught
by Walter in order to result in the navigation display to render a new parallel
flight path as well as retain the original path showing the selected departure
point and rejoin point.” Id.
Appellant takes issue with the analysis and conclusions presented in
the Final Action, contending that “combining Walter and Murphy as
suggested by Examiner does not teach or suggest the entire feature,
specifically, selected from the group consisting of (1) a bearing
of a segment of the flight plan and (2) a flight plan offset,” and that “[t]o
accept such reasoning would be to disregard the ingenuity and inventive step
of making a group of items available to the user for selection,” concluding
that “the Examiner’s argument rests on the improper assumption that a
reference allegedly teaching a first item combined with a reference allegedly
teaching a second item together teaches or suggests every element of
independent Claim 1, specifically that it teaches selecting from a group
consisting of the two items.” Appeal Br. 14; see also Reply Br. 5.
However, we disagree, noting that when a claim contains alternative
elements, such as in a Markush grouping, it is black letter law that the claim
is obvious if any of the alternative elements are known in the prior art.
Appellant does not dispute that Walter teaches “a flight plan offset.”3 Stated
another way, in that claim 1 recites altering “at least one parameter” in the
alternative, the claim language is met by adjusting “a flight plan offset,” the
3 While Appellant disputes the Examiner’s reliance on Murphy, for teaching
the other member of the Markush group (Appeal Br. 13—14), we find this
contention to be moot, as we agree with the Examiner that Walter teaches
the other member of the Markush group of claim 1.
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Application 13/531,786
alternative as taught by Walter. “When a claim covers several structures or
compositions, either generically or as alternatives, the claim is deemed
anticipated if any of the structures or compositions within the scope of the
claim is known in the prior art.” Brown v. 3M, 265 F.3d 1349, 1351, 60
USPQ2d 1375, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (claim to a system for setting a
computer clock to an offset time to address the Year 2000 (Y2K) problem,
applicable to records with year date data in “at least one of two-digit, three-
digit, or four-digit” representations, was held anticipated by a system that
offsets year dates in only two-digit formats). MPEP § 2131 (emphasis
added).
Therefore we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 7—11
and 19 as being obvious over Lee, Wilson, Murphy, and Walter.
Obviousness of Claims 3 and 20 over Lee, Wilson, Murphy, Walter,
and Yoshikoshi
In response to the rejection of claims 3 and 20, Appellant contends
that the combination of Yoshikoshi with the four previously cited references
“does not achieve coverage of the claim element, ‘wherein the navigation
display is a touchscreen and the step of dragging comprises dragging with
a finger.’”4 Appeal Br. 15. In that Appellant does not dispute the
Examiner’s findings regarding the disclosure of Yoshikoshi, the argument
amounts to nothing more than a naked assertion of patentability. See In re
Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011). Furthermore, attacks on the
number of references are generally not persuasive. See In re Gorman, 933
4 We note that Lee also discloses the claim element for which Yoshikoshi is
cited. See Lee 130; see also Final Act. 2.
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Application 13/531,786
F.2d 982, 986 (Fed. Cir. 1991) (affirming obviousness rejection over thirteen
references) (“The criterion ... is not the number of references, but what they
would have meant to a person of ordinary skill in the field of the
invention.”).
Thus, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 3 and 20 over
Lee, Wilson, Murphy, Walter, and Yoshikoshi.
Obviousness of claims 12, 14, and 16—.18s over Murphy, Wilson, and
Walter; and of claim 13 over Murphy, Wilson, Walter, and Yoshikoshi
Appellant argues claims 12—14 and 16—18 together in contesting the
rejection of these claims. See Appeal Br. 15—16. We select claim 12 as the
representative claim for this group, and the remaining claims stand or fall
with claim 12. See 37 C.F.R. 41.37(c)(l)(iv). Regarding the Examiner’s
reliance on Murphy, Appellant essentially repeats the same arguments
presented against the rejection of claim 1, which we found to be
unpersuasive.5 6 Thus we sustain the rejection of claims 12, 14, and 16—18
over Murphy, Wilson, and Walter; and of claim 13 over Murphy, Wilson,
Walter, and Yoshikoshi.
DECISION
We AFFIRM the Examiner’s rejections.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
5 We correct the Examiner’s inadvertent inclusion of canceled claim 15 in
this rejection.
6 See note 2.
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