Ex Parte Willumeit et alDownload PDFBoard of Patent Appeals and InterferencesJun 4, 201010275395 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 4, 2010) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES ____________________ Ex parte HEINZ WILLUMEIT and JORG BISCHOF ____________________ Appeal 2009-004754 Application 10/275,3951 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Decided: June 7, 2010 ____________________ Before JEAN R. HOMERE, THU A. DANG, and STEPHEN C. SIU, Administrative Patent Judges. HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING 1 Filed on May 9, 2003. The real party in interest is SAP Ag. (App. Br. 2.) Appeal 2009-004754 Application 10/275,395 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE In a paper filed January 27, 2010, Appellants request a rehearing under 37 C.F.R. § 41.52 from the Opinion of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (hereinafter Board) dated December 9, 2009. In the Opinion, we affirmed the Examiner’s rejection of claims 27 through 37. Appellants allege that the Board erred by misapprehending or overlooking Hill’s disclosure to sustain the Examiner’s rejection. Appellants primarily allege that the Board erred in finding that Hill’s disclosure of embedding newly generated style definitions in an HTML document teaches updating an existing embedded style sheet, as recited in independent claim 27. (Req. Reh’g 2.) In particular, Appellants argue that Hill’s disclosure of embedding newly generated style definitions in the HTML document teaches including or adding the newly generated style definitions to the HTML document to thereby create a new style sheet to be embedded therein. However, it does not teach (and it is not intended to teach) using the newly generated style definitions to modify, update or replace an existing embedded style sheet. (Req. Reh’g 2-7.) Further, Appellants argue that the claimed updated layout file is separate from the content page file to be formatted, whereas the embedded style sheet in Hill is not distinct from the document content page. (Id. at 7-8.) Consequently, Appellants request a rehearing of the Board’s Decision affirming the rejection of claims 27 through 37. (Id. at 9.) We have carefully reviewed the Opinion in light of Appellants’ remarks. We address those remarks in the order in which they are presented in the Request. Appeal 2009-004754 Application 10/275,395 3 First, we do not agree with Appellants that we overlooked or misapprehended Hill’s disclosure in the Opinion to affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 27 through 37. At pages 6 and 8 the Opinion, we referred to certain portions of Hill’s disclosure, which we reproduce in part hereinbelow: A variation of the server-controlled embodiment illustrates in FIG. 5 is shown in FIG. 6. In the variation illustrated by FIG. 6, the layout generator includes a style generator. The style generator creates a style sheet using a plurality of style definitions, rather than selecting a style sheet from a plurality of style sheets. Col. 11, ll. 59-64. Alternatively, the style generator may generate an embedded style sheet. If the style sheet is embedded in an HTML document, then the style generator modifies the HTML document to include style definitions in a style tag or in STYLE attributes. Col. 12, ll. 33-37. In our original analysis, we found that the cited disclosure of Hill teaches modifying style sheets embedded within an existing HTML document to include style definitions in a style tag thereby creating new style sheets. (Op. 8.) We maintain our original position since we find no error or misapprehension in our original finding. In the afore-cited text, Hill clearly discloses an existing HTML document having embedded therein one or more style sheets into which a style generator adds style definitions in order to modify the HTML document. We reiterate that, by including or adding the style definitions to the existing style sheet of the HTML document, Hill teaches modifying or updating the existing style sheet is Appeal 2009-004754 Application 10/275,395 4 being to thereby create a new style sheet (i.e. existing style sheet + style definitions). Subsequently, by embedding the newly created style sheet into the HTML document (i.e. replacing the existing style sheet with the newly created one), it is in turn updated or modified. Consequently, we find no error in our previous holding that Hill’s disclosure of a newly created style sheet replaces the existing style sheet in the HTML document. Next, we find unpersuasive Appellants’ argument that Hill does not teach that the newly created style sheet is separate from the content page. As acknowledged by Appellants, Hill discloses a style generator for generating an external style sheet, which is a separate entity from the document content page. (Req. Reh’g 8.) Then, Hill discloses a layout generator for embedding the generated style sheet into the HTML document, and for subsequently modifying the style sheet by including the style definitions therein before re-embedding the updated style sheet in the HTML document to replace the previously embedded style sheet, as discussed above. Appeal 2009-004754 Application 10/275,395 5 CONCLUSION In view of the foregoing discussion, we deny Appellants’ Request for Rehearing. We have modified the original Opinion to the extent that we respond to Appellants’ arguments presented in the request for rehearing. We have maintained our decision to affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 27 through 37. REQUEST FOR REHEARING-DENIED Erc FINNEGAN, HENDERSON, FARABOW, GARRETT & DUNNER LLP 901 NEW YORK AVENUE, NW WASHINGTON DC 20001-4413 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation