Ex Parte Sattler et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Apr 6, 2012

11026056 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 6, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
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.
11/026,056 01/03/2005 Juergen Sattler 11884/433601 7901
23838 7590 04/06/2012
KENYON & KENYON LLP
1500 K STREET N.W.
SUITE 700
WASHINGTON, DC 20005
EXAMINER
RAMPURIA, SATISH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2191
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/06/2012 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 JUERGEN SATTLER and JOACHIM GAFFGA
____________

Appeal 2009-014402
Application 11/026,056
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before GREGORY J. GONSALVES, JASON V. MORGAN,
and BRUCE R. WINSOR, Administrative Patent Judges.

WINSOR, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2009-014402
Application 11/026,056

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Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-18, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claim 1, which is illustrative of the invention, reads as follows
(emphases added):
1. A method comprising:
receiving a call message specifying a type of application
program to be called from a calling application program that is
executing on a computer system;
determining whether the computer system has any
application programs of the specified type available for
execution;
if an application program of the specified type is
available for execution on the computer system, performing the
following:
identifying an application having a type that
matches the type specified in the call message;
converting the call message directly to a format
recognized by the identified application; and
calling the identified application program using the
converted application call message.
The Examiner relies on the following prior art in rejecting the claims:
Delo US 2002/0095671 A1 July 18, 2002
Jain US 2004/0010791 A1 Jan. 15, 2004
Blaukopf US 7,080,387 B2 July 18, 2006
Appeal 2009-014402
Application 11/026,056

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Claims 1-4, 6, 8-12, and 14-181 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Blaukopf in view of Jain.
Claims 5, 7, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Blaukopf in view of Jain and Delo.
Rather than repeat the arguments here, we make reference to the Brief
(hereinafter, “Br.” filed Feb. 2, 2009) and the Answer (hereinafter, “Ans.”
mailed May 12, 2009) for the respective positions of Appellants and the
Examiner.

ISSUE(S)
The Examiner finds that:
Jain discloses in an analogous computer system determining
whether the computer system has any application programs
(paragraph [0073] "Identify system looks to the configuration
file to identify a program") of the specified type available for
execution (paragraph [0073] "looking for an entry that
identifies a program… to invoke in response to… data");
identifying an application having a type that matches the type
specified in the call message (paragraph [0014] "identify a
program that corresponds to the event (i.e., call message) and
the API that corresponds to the program... .").
(ellipses in original) (Ans. 5). Appellants contend “Jain never refers to
identifying applications by type. In paragraph 0009, Jain merely states it is
useful for an identity system to support more than one API. In paragraph
0014, Jain refers to identifying an application – not an application type -- in
response to an event.” (Br. 7).

1 The Grounds of Rejection (Ans. 4) do not list claims 17 and 18, but the
Examiner has entered findings (Ans. 11-12) to support the rejection of
claims 17 and 18 (see also App. Br. 5).

Appeal 2009-014402
Application 11/026,056

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The dispositive issue presented by Appellants’ arguments is: Does
Jain, combined with Blaukopf, teach or suggest “a call message specifying a
type of application program to be called[,] . . . determining whether [a]
computer system has any application programs of the specified type[,] . . .
[and] identifying an application having a type that matches the type specified
in the call message[,]” as recited in claim 1?2

ANALYSIS
Implicit in the Examiner’s findings is a claim construction that the
broadest reasonable interpretation of “specifying a type of application
program” would encompass an event that specifies a corresponding
particular application program (e.g., Microsoft Word 2003®) (see Ans. 14-
15). Implicit in Appellants’ contention is a claim construction that
specifying a “type of application program” does not encompass specifying a
particular application program but, rather, is limited to specifying a
functional category of application programs (e.g., word processing
programs).
As proposed in the pending application, calls from a first
application may occur by identifying the type of application to
be called, not by identifying the application directly (e.g., run a
word processing program vs. run Corel WordPerfect).
Accordingly, claim 1 refers to steps of specifying a type of
application program, determining whether the computer system
has any application programs of the specified type available for
execution and identifying an application having a type that
matches the type specified in the call message.

2 Appellants’ arguments present additional issues. We do not reach the
additional issues as this issue is dispositive of the appeal.

Appeal 2009-014402
Application 11/026,056

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(Br. 6-7).
Claim construction is an issue of law that we review de novo. Cordis
Corp. v. Boston Scientific Corp., 561 F.3d 1319, 1331 (Fed. Cir. 2009).
Claims are not to be read in a vacuum, but must be given their broadest
reasonable interpretation in light of the Specification as it would be
interpreted by ordinary artisans. Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303,
1316 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc).
We note first that in the context of claim 1, a distinction is made
between a “type of application program” and “application program.” In
particular, we note that type is used to designate some attribute, such as a
quality or characteristic, of the application program, and not the application
program itself (e.g., “identifying an application having a type” (emphasis
added)). The same distinction is made in the Specification. (See, e.g., Spec.
¶¶ [0010]-[0015]). Furthermore, “type” is most relevantly defined as “a
particular kind, class, or group,” MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S COLLEGIATE
DICTIONARY 1278 (10th ed. 1999), and is synonymous with “type, kind, sort,
nature, description, character” (id.). We find that, properly construed, the
phrase “type of application program” encompasses a category of application
programs identified by some quality or characteristic common to the
category. For example, it encompasses a functional category of application
programs such as “word processor application[s]” (Br. 8). However, the
phrase “type of application program,” as used in claim 1, does not
encompass a particular application program, nor does “type” encompass
“event.”
The Examiner does not take the position that the cited passages of
Blaukopf (Fig. 2; col. 3, ll. 33-34, 47-48, 53-56) (see Ans. 4) disclose
Appeal 2009-014402
Application 11/026,056

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specifying a “type of application program” as recited in claim 1 (Ans. 14).
As argued by Appellants (Br. 7), the passages of Jain (Figs. 8, 9; ¶¶ [0009],
[0012], [0014], [0071]-[0073], [0076]) cited by the Examiner (Ans. 4-5, 14-
15) do not teach or suggest specifying a “type of application program.”
Rather, the cited passages teach “[a] registration list [that] is an event catalog
with each entry correlating an event to a program and the API used by the
program.” (Emphases added) (Jain ¶ [0014]).
The Examiner has not identified anything in Delo that would remedy
the deficiency in Blaukopf combined with Jain.
We find that the cited prior art does not teach or suggest “a call
message specifying a type of application program to be called[,] . . .
determining whether [a] computer system has any application programs of
the specified type[,] . . . [and] identifying an application having a type that
matches the type specified in the call message[,]” as recited in claim 1.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of (1) claim 1; (2) claims
8 and 14, which include substantially the same limitation that we find
missing from the cited prior art; and (3) claims 2-7, 9-13, and 15-18, which
depend variously from claims 1, 8, and 14.

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-18 is reversed.

REVERSED

gvw