Ex Parte Tengler et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 20, 2017

12165294 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 20, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
12/165,294 06/30/2008 Steven C. Tengler 262805 1707
73811 7590 03/22/2017
Leydig, Voit & Mayer, Ltd.
Two Prudential Plaza, Suite 4900
180 North Stetson Avenue
Chicago, IL 60601-6731
EXAMINER
KIM, KYUNG J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3665
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/22/2017 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):
Chgpatent @ ley dig. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte STEVEN C. TENGLER, RICHARD A. JOHNSON, and
GARY A. WATKINS
Appeal 2015-005541
Application 12/165,2941
Technology Center 3600
Before MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, CYNTHIA L. MURPHY, and
ALYSSA A. FINAMORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
ASTORINO, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
The Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s
decision finally rejecting claims 1, 5, 8, 21, and 24—27. We have jurisdiction
over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 The Appellants identify the real party in interest as General Motors
Corporation. Appeal Br. 1.
Appeal 2015-005541
Application 12/165,294
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claimed Subject Matter
Claims 1 and 24 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below with emphasis added, is illustrative of the subject matter
on appeal.
1. In a mobile traffic reporting system, a method for enhancing
subscriber privacy while delivering in-vehicle alerts to a traffic
probe vehicle associated with a subscriber, the method
comprising:
receiving, by a call center, input corresponding to the
traffic probe vehicle opting in as a participant of a fleet of traffic
reporting vehicles;
receiving, by the call center, input of an alert configuration
corresponding to the traffic probe vehicle from the subscriber,
wherein the alert configuration includes an indication of types of
alerts, selected from the group of alert types consisting of: a
weather alert type and an emergency alert type, to be delivered
to the traffic probe vehicle;
disassociating, by the call center, subscriber information
from traffic probe information to be received from the traffic
probe vehicle by assigning a unique identifier to the traffic probe
vehicle;
storing, by the call center, the unique identifier in a table
that includes cross-references between unique identifiers and
subscriber information;
periodically receiving, by the call center, a traffic probe
message from the traffic probe vehicle, wherein the traffic probe
message includes the unique identifier and further includes
information regarding the vehicle’s location, speed, and direction
of travel;
collecting, by the call center, alert information from a
plurality of data feeds, wherein the data feeds include weather
data feeds, data feeds from police data centers, and data feeds
from fire department data centers;
correlating, by the call center, the collected alert
information with vehicle location information of a received
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Appeal 2015-005541
Application 12/165,294
traffic probe message so as to generate a plurality of relevant
location-based alerts for the traffic probe vehicle;
determining, by the call center, subscriber information that
corresponds to the unique identifier of the traffic probe message
by querying the table;
determining, by the call center, the alert configuration
corresponding to the traffic probe vehicle based on the subscriber
information;
filtering, by the call center, the plurality of relevant
location-based alerts based on the determined alert configuration
corresponding to the traffic probe vehicle and further based on
whether any of the plurality of alerts has previously been
delivered to the traffic probe vehicle; and
delivering, by the call center, one or more filtered alerts to
the traffic probe vehicle;
wherein the one or more filtered alerts is delivered to the
traffic probe vehicle within the same communication session
wherein the received traffic probe message is received.
Rejections
Claims 1, 5, 24, and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Kirk,2 Piccioni,3 and Smith.4
Claims 8 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Kirk, Piccioni, Smith, and Pecen.5
Claims 21 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Kirk, Piccioni, Smith, and Tretyak.6
2 Kirk et al. (US 7,650,227 B2, iss. Jan. 19, 2010).
3 Piccioni (US 6,842,774 Bl, iss. Jan. 11, 2005).
4 Smith et al. (US 2005/0065678 Al, pub. Mar. 24, 2005).
5 Pecen et al. (US 2002/0147926 Al, pub. Oct. 10, 2002).
6 Tretyak et al. (US 2006/0276184 Al, pub. Dec. 7, 2006).
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Application 12/165,294
ANALYSIS
The Examiner determines that the combined teachings of Kirk,
Piccioni, and Smith fail to “explicitly disclose that the one or more filtered
alerts is delivered to the traffic probe vehicle within a same communication
session wherein the received traffic probe messaged is received.” Final
Act. 7 (emphasis added). Thereafter, the Examiner appears to reason that
because Kirk teaches receiving a traffic probe message and Piccioni teaches
delivering a filtered alert during a communication session, that, in
combination, these references teach “one or more filtered alerts is delivered
to the traffic probe vehicle within the same communication session wherein
the received traffic probe message is received,” as recited in independent
claims 1 and 24 (Appeal Br., Claims App.). See Final Act. 7.
The Appellants argue that the Examiner’s rejection includes the
following erroneous premise “that it would have been obvious for a call
center to receive anonymous traffic probe messages and deliver subscriber-
specific alerts within the same communication session even though none of
the cited references describes doing so.” Appeal Br. 6; see id. at 7—8; Reply
Br. 5-6.
In response, the Examiner reasons that “it would have been obvious to
one having ordinary skill in the art to desire a single mobile traffic reporting
system and modifying Kirk in view of Piccioni in order to accomplish such a
system” because “it would be redundant to”: “perform multiple
communication sessions in which data is being provided from the traffic
probe to the server or the server to the mobile alert device” and “to require
the user to require separate transmitting (for the traffic data reporting) and
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Application 12/165,294
receiving (for the location-based alerts) devices in order to communicate
over the same cellular data network.” Ans. 7—8.
As persuasively pointed out by the Appellants, the Examiner’s
reasoning lacks adequate support in the references being relied upon, i.e.,
Kirk and Piccioni; and, the Examiner’s reasoning appears to rely on a post
hoc rationale based on the claimed invention to cure the deficiencies of the
references. Reply Br. 6.
Thus, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claims 1 and 24, and dependent claims 5 and 25, as unpatentable over Kirk,
Piccioni, and Smith. The remaining rejections based on Kirk, Piccioni, and
Smith in combination with Pecen or Tretyak rely on the same post hoc
rationale as discussed above and are not remedied by the additional findings
and reasoning provided by the Examiner for each of the remaining
rejections. As such, we do not sustain the rejections under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) of: claims 8 and 26 as unpatentable over Kirk, Piccioni, Smith, and
Pecen; and claims 21 and 27 as unpatentable over Kirk, Piccioni, Smith, and
Tretyak.
DECISION
We REVERSE the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 5, 8, 21,
and 24—27.
REVERSED
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