Ex Parte Piccazzo

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 23, 2017

13730049 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 23, 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.
13/730,049 12/28/2012 Michele Piccazzo 2011P05126 1007
27350 7590 06/27/2017
LERNER GREENBERG STEMER LLP
Box SA
P.O. BOX 2480
HOLLYWOOD, EL 33022-2480
EXAMINER
HTAY, LIN LIN M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2153
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/27/2017 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):
boxsa@patentusa.com
docket @ paten tusa. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MICHELE PICCAZZO
Appeal 2017-003929
Application 13/730,0491
Technology Center 2100
Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, LARRY J. HUME, and
JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges.
CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1,3,4, 6—9, 11, 13, and 14, which are all of the claims
pending in this application.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Siemens
Aktiengesellschaft. App. Br. 1.
2 Claims 2, 5, 10, and 12 have been canceled. App. Br. 1.
Appeal 2017-003929
Application 13/730,049
INVENTION
Appellant’s application relates to a method, distributed architecture
and web application for overall equipment effectiveness analysis. Title.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the appealed subject matter and reads as follows:
1. A method for an overall equipment effectiveness analysis
(OEE analysis) for a manufacturing execution system and the
method running on a distributed architecture, the method
comprises the steps of:
providing a web server running a data mining service and
a web application, wherein the data mining service executes data
mining algorithms to find results in data for the OEE analysis;
providing browsers running on clients, the clients being
connected with the web server;
providing an OEE server connected with the web server,
the OEE server performing the following service steps of:
acquiring data from a field;
scheduling of calculations for reports to be displayed on at
least one of the browsers;
executing runtime queries entered in at least one of the
browsers;
providing a database server hosting an overall equipment
effectiveness (OEE) database and a data mining support
database, the data mining support database containing the data
for the OEE analysis and the data mining support database is
used only by the browsers running on a client; and
storing the OEE analysis in the data mining support data
base and repeating the OEE analysis on a new set of data;
wherein the service of the scheduling of calculations for
reports is running and updated once for all the reports and the
reports along with updated results placed therein are stored in the
OEE database.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 11 stand rejected under pre-AIA
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Kallela et al.
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Appeal 2017-003929
Application 13/730,049
(US 2003/0014699 Al; pub. Jan. 16, 2003) (“Kallela”), Celestini (US
2007/0192128 Al; pub. Aug. 16, 2007), and Heytens et al. (US
2003/0220860 Al; pub. Nov. 27, 2003) (“Heytens”).
Claims 6, 7, 13, and 14 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Kallela, Celestini, Heytens,
and Agrusa et al. (US 8,219,669 B2; iss. July 10, 2012) (“Agrusa”).
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
contentions the Examiner erred. We disagree with Appellant’s contentions.
Except as noted below, we adopt as our own: (1) the findings and reasons set
forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2)
the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response
to Appellant’s Appeal Brief. We concur with the findings and legal
conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following additional
points.
Claims 1, 3, 4, 8, 9 and 11
Appellant contends the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 because
the cited prior art fails to teach the limitation “wherein the service of the
scheduling of calculations for reports is running and updated once for all the
reports and the reports along with updated results placed therein are stored in
the OEE database,” recited in claim l.3 App. Br. 6. Appellant argues
Celestini does not teach that reports and updated results are stored in the
OEE database, as claim 1 requires. Id. at 7—10. In particular, Appellant
3 At the time of the Final Action, portions of the disputed limitation were
recited in claim 2, which was subsequently canceled and incorporated into
claim 1 by an amendment under 37 C.F.R. § 1.116.
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Appeal 2017-003929
Application 13/730,049
argues that the database disclosed in paragraph 97 of Celestini, cited by the
Examiner, is not an OEE database. Reply Br. 3.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments because Appellant
attacks Celestini individually (App. Br. 7), even though the Examiner relied
on the combination of Celestini, Kallella and Heytens as teaching or
suggesting the disputed features. Final Act. 6—12; see also Ans. 2—5; In re
Mouttet, 686 F.3d 1322, 1332 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d
413,425 (CCPA 1981)) (“[T]he test for obviousness is what the combined
teachings of the references would have suggested to those having ordinary
skill in the art.”).
With regard to the disputed limitation, the Examiner found, for
example, that Celestini teaches a method of generating reports and storing
the generated reports in a database. Ans. 3^4 (citing Celestini
11 85, 95, and 97). The Examiner further found that Cellini teaches
displaying information related to key performance indicators such as overall
equipment efficiency (OEE), and Kallela teaches an OEE calculator set up
for accessing data that are provided in a fault database. Id. at 4—5 (citing
Celestini 1143; Kallela 161). The Examiner has articulated (Final Act. 6—
12; see also Ans. 3—5) how the claimed features are taught or suggested by
the references’ teachings with some rational underpinning to combine
Celestini’s teachings with those of Kallela and Heytens. See KSR Int'l v.
Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007).
Nonobviousness cannot be established by attacking the references
individually when the rejection is predicated upon a combination of prior art
disclosures. In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Here, Appellant argues that the disputed “OEE database” is not expressly
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Application 13/730,049
suggested in any one or all of the references, but fails persuasively to
address whether the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to
those of ordinary skill in the art in light of the combined teachings of those
references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d at 425.
For these reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding
that the combination Celestini, Kallela and Heytens teaches or suggests the
disputed limitations of claim 1.
Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of
representative independent claim 1, as well as the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
rejection of independent claim 9, which Appellant argues is patentable for
similar reasons. App. Br. 6. We also sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
rejection of dependent claims 3, 4, 8, and 11, for which Appellant makes no
additional arguments. App. Br. 6—10; see also 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
Claims 6, 7, 13, and 14
As Appellant has not provided separate, substantive arguments with
respect to dependent claims 6, 7, 13, and 14, we sustain the Examiner’s
rejection of these claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). When Appellants do not
separately argue the patentability of dependent claims, the claims stand or
fall with the claims from which they depend. Arguments not made are
waived. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
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DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1,3,4, 6—9, 11,
13, and 14.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). See C.F.R.
§ 41.50(f).
AFFIRMED
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