Ex Parte Roto et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Feb 23, 2011

11170774 (B.P.A.I. Feb. 23, 2011)

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.
11/170,774 06/29/2005 Virpi Roto 490-012302-US (PAR) 2712
10868 7590 02/24/2011
Perman & Green, LLP
99 Hawley Lane
Stratford, CT 06614
EXAMINER
LEE, TING ZHOU
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2173
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/24/2011 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte VIRPI ROTO, ANTTI KOIVISTO, ELINA VARTIAINEN,
ANDREI POPESCU, and GUIDO GRASEEL
____________

Appeal 2009-009932
Application 11/170,774
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, LANCE LEONARD BARRY, and
JOHN A. JEFFERY, Administrative Patent Judges.

JEFFERY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1-22. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We
affirm.

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 2009-009932
Application 11/170,774

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention displays a representation of previously viewed
browser window pages in a communication device. See generally Spec. 1-2.
Claim 1 is reproduced below with the key disputed limitations emphasized:
1. In a mobile communication terminal having a display, a method for
controlling the display of a plurality of pages in a browser application
said method comprising:

- creating a first set of graphical representations of pages previously
displayed in a first browser window,

- creating a second set of graphical representations of pages
previously displayed in a second browser window,

- displaying at least a subset of said first set of graphical
representations in a first spatial sequence along a first direction of said
display, and

- displaying at least a subset of said second set of graphical
representations in a second spatial sequence parallel to said first
direction and separated from said first spatial sequence a distance
along a second direction perpendicular to said first direction.

The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability:
Platt US 2003/0009469 A1 Jan. 9, 2003
Sommerer US 7,225,407 B2 May 29, 2007
(filed June 28, 2002)

THE REJECTIONS
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1-13 and 15-22 under 35 U.S.C.
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§ 102(e) as anticipated by Sommerer. Ans. 3-8.2
2. The Examiner rejected claim 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Sommerer and Platt. Ans. 8-9.

THE ANTICIPATION REJECTION OVER SOMMERER
Regarding representative independent claim 1, the Examiner finds that
Sommerer discloses all recited elements, including mapping Figure 2’s
bottom row in Sommerer’s navigation window to the recited displaying a
subset of the second graphical representation set of pages previously
displayed in a second browser window. See Ans. 3-4, 10-11.
Appellants argue that Sommerer fails to disclose displaying the
second graphical representation because: (1) Sommerer’s discussion of
multiple sessions fails to teach displaying in separate browser windows, and
(2) Sommerer’s Figure 2 shows a search result using a single session in a
single window with the second row being a continuation of the first row.
App. Br. 4-7; Reply Br. 2-3. Appellants also assert that the claimed
invention has a limited display region and cannot accommodate the
sophistication of Sommerer’s system. App. Br. 4-5, 7.
The issue before us, then, is as follows:

ISSUE
Under § 102, has the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 by finding
that Sommerer displays a subset of the second graphical representation set of

2 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Appeal Brief filed September
22, 2008; (2) the Examiner’s Answer mailed December 9, 2008; and (3) the
Reply Brief filed February 3, 2009.
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Application 11/170,774

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pages previously displayed in a second browser window in a second spatial
sequence?

FINDINGS OF FACT
1. Appellants have not defined a “browser window.” See generally
Specification.
2. Sommerer discloses a user interface for a browser-session search
tool. Sommerer includes a “Navigation” window 200 having navigation
sequences associated with web pages shown in the visits region 202 that
includes two visits. Sommerer’s Figure 2 includes two headings within
navigation window 200: (a) a top row labelled “Welcome to MSN.com”
with a timestamp of February 19, 2002 at 3:42:43 and having a Uniform
Resource Locator (URL) of “http://www.msn.com”, and (b) bottom row
labelled “MSN Search: Milosevic trial” with a timestamp of February 19,
2002 at 3:51:00 and having a different URL. The currently selected search
result 206 is shown in the navigation sequence 204 and allows a user to
retrieve previously executed navigation sequence from an archive based on a
characteristic. Sommerer, col. 3, ll. 59-61; col. 5, l. 61- col. 6, l. 4; Fig. 2.
3. Sommerer discloses that computer 203 can be conventional
computer, a distributed computer, or any other type of computer. Sommerer,
col. 14, ll. 59-61; Fig. 10.

3 Figure 10 does not include reference number “20.” However, because
computer 20 includes a processing unit 21, a system memory 22, and a
system bus 23 (see Sommerer, col. 14, ll. 49-55), we find that computer 20 is
the dotted box that surrounds these components. See Fig. 10.
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ANALYSIS
Based on the record before us, we find no error in the Examiner’s
anticipation rejection of independent claim 1 which calls for, in pertinent
part, displaying a subset of the second graphical representation set of pages
previously displayed in a second browser window in a second spatial
sequence. We note that claims are given their broadest reasonable
construction in light of the disclosure. See In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr.,
367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (internal citations omitted).
Appellants have not defined a “browser window.” See FF 1. Thus, unlike
the Examiner describes (see Ans. 3, 12) and Appellants argue (App. Br. 6;
Reply Br. 2-3), the recitation to “a first browser window” and “a second
browser window” is not limited to, and does not require, multiple sessions.
For example, one can display various pages from one website address
in a “first” browser window, and then display various other pages from the
same or another website with a distinct URL in a “second” browser window
using the same browser in a single session. That is, each “browser window”
in this example can include a new window that is distinct by virtue of newly
populated information (e.g., graphics) as a user navigates from one URL on
a “first” browser window to a different URL on a “second” browser window
within the same website. We therefore are unpersuaded by Appellants’
arguments related to Sommerer’s multiple and single sessions failing to
display graphical representations in separate browser windows. See App.
Br. 6; Reply Br. 2-3. Also, notably, claim 1 recites that the pages were
previously displayed in the second browser window, and not displaying the
graphical representation sets in a first and second browser window.

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Sommerer discloses two visits to a location (i.e., two navigation
sequences) associated with web pages in the visits region 202. See FF 2.
Thus, one visit can be considered as pages previously displayed in a first
browser window, and a second visit can be considered as pages previously
displayed in a second browser window. Moreover, each visit is a graphical
representation subset (e.g., a page icon) of pages previously displayed in a
browser window and the icons are parallel to and separated from each other
along a direction perpendicular to each other.
Additionally, Sommerer’s Figure 2 includes two headings within a
navigation window 200: (a) a top graphical representation labelled
“Welcome to MSN.com” with a timestamp of February 19, 2002 at 3:42:43
and a URL of “http://www.msn.com” and (b) bottom graphical
representation labelled “MSN Search: Milosevic trial” with a timestamp of
February 19, 2002 at 3:51:00 and a different URL. See id. Both the top and
bottom representations have different URLs, different timestamps, and
different sequences. See also Ans. 10-11. Thus, each row can be mapped to
a separate graphical representation set (e.g., page icons) of pages previously
displayed in a distinct browser window. See FF 2. We therefore find that
Sommerer’s top row in Figure 2 displays a first graphical subset of pages
previously displayed in a first browser window, and the bottom row displays
a second graphical subset of pages previously displayed in a first and second
browser window as required by claim 1.
Appellants also argue that Sommerer’s Figure 2 is a single session
with the second row being a continuation of the first row. App. Br. 4-8;
Reply Br. 2-3. We disagree. First, Sommerer states that the currently
selected search result 206 is shown in navigation sequence 204. See FF 2.
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Reference numbers 204 and 206 do not point to, and are not included with,
the second or bottom row. See id. Second, as noted above, the top row has a
different title (“Welcome to MSN.com” versus “MSN Search: milosevic
trial”), a different URL, and a different timestamp (“3:42:43” versus
“3:51:00”) than the bottom row. See id. The clear import of these
representations is that that the two sequences are not continuations of each
other, but are actually independent sequences displaying different graphical
representations of pages previously displayed in different browser windows.
We therefore disagree with Appellants (App. Br. 4-8; Reply Br. 2-3) that
Sommerer’s Figure 2 shows a single session with and fails to display a
second graphical representation set as recited in claim 1.
Appellants further contend that Sommerer’s device is too
sophisticated to be used in a mobile communications device. App. Br. 4-5,
7. Because the recited mobile communication terminal has a display and
this display is also recited in the body of the claim (see claim 1, line 8), we
disagree with the Examiner (see Ans. 12-13) and find that the recitation in
the preamble of a mobile communication terminal display does breath life
and meaning into the remainder of the claim. See Am. Med. Sys., Inc. v.
Biolitec, Inc., 618 F.3d 1354, 1358-59 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (internal citations
omitted). Nonetheless, Sommerer discloses that the computer or terminal
can be conventional or any type of computer. See FF 3. Mobile
communication terminals with displays were deemed to be “any type of
computer” at the time of the invention. Also, while Appellants assert that
Sommerer is too sophisticated to be the claimed mobile communication
terminal and the claimed terminal could not accommodate the display
functions in Sommerer, Appellants have not provided any intrinsic or
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extrinsic evidence to support this assertion. See App. Br. 4-5. Mere
arguments unsupported by factual evidence are entitled to little probative
value. See In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
Lastly, while independent claims 1 and 20 recite a mobile
communication terminal, independent claim 21 recites only a computer
useable medium having code for causing a processing unit to execute certain
commands, and independent claim 22 recites a processor configured to
display pages in an application for execution in a communications device.
We therefore find that the argument pertaining to a mobile communication
terminal is not commensurate in scope with independent claims 21 and 22.
For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have not shown error in the
anticipation rejection of: (1) independent claim 1, and (2) claims 2-13 and
15-22, not separately argued with particularity (App. Br. 4-7).

THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER SOMMERER AND PLATT
Claim 14 depends from claim 8 and further recites the preferred
representation highlighting step comprise centering the preferred
representation on the display. Appellants rely on the arguments presented
for claims 1, 20, and 21 to demonstrate that Sommerer and Platt collectively
fail to teach all the limitations of claim 14. App. Br. 7-8. We are not
persuaded for the reasons discussed above in connection with these claims
and will sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 14.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting (1) claims 1-13 and 15-22 under
§ 102, and (2) claim 14 under § 103.
Appeal 2009-009932
Application 11/170,774

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ORDER
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-22 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)(iv).

AFFIRMED

erc

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