Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardOct 12, 20212020004200 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 12, 2021) Copy Citation 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. 15/217,630 07/22/2016 Arnold S. Weksler RPS920150178USNP(710.511) 6233 58127 7590 10/12/2021 FERENCE & ASSOCIATES LLC 409 BROAD STREET PITTSBURGH, PA 15143 EXAMINER BOLOURCHI, NADER ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2631 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/12/2021 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte ARNOLD S. WEKSLER, JOHN CARL MESE, RUSSELL SPEIGHT VANBLON, and NATHAN J. PETERSON __________ Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 Technology Center 2600 ____________ Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JAMES B. ARPIN, and ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges. ARPIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–20, all of the pending claims.1 Final Act. 2.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party-in-interest as Lenovo (Singapore) PTE. LTD. Appeal Br. 3. 2 In this Decision, we refer to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.,” filed December 9, 2019) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed May 19, 2020); the Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed July 10, 2019) and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed April 1, 2020); and the Specification (“Spec.,” filed July 22, 2016). Rather than repeat the Examiner’s findings and Appellant’s contentions in their entirety, we refer to these documents. Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The claimed methods, devices, and products relate generally to “receiving, at a security device, external data; and adjusting, at the security device, a motion detection feature based on the external data.” Spec. ¶ 3. In particular, “[a] motion detection algorithm can be configured to ignore such repetitive motion and only trigger an alarm when there is a perceived different movement.” Id. ¶ 16. As noted above, claims 1–20 are pending. Claims 1, 11, and 20 are independent. Appeal Br. 22 (claim 1), 23–24 (claim 11), 25 (claim 20) (Claims App.). Claims 2–10 depend directly or indirectly from claim 1, and claims 12–19 depend directly or indirectly from claim 11. Id. at 22–25. Claim 1, reproduced below with disputed limitations emphasized, is representative. 1. A method, comprising: receiving, at a security device, external data corresponding to a current environmental weather condition; determining whether an attribute of the current environmental weather condition exceeds a predetermined threshold; adjusting, at the security device and responsive to determining that the attribute exceeds the predetermined threshold, a motion detection feature to ignore at least one motion characteristic associated with the current environmental weather condition; identifying, using a sensor, object motion; and triggering, responsive to determining that the object motion is not associated with the at least one motion characteristic, an alert; wherein the at least one motion characteristic comprises at least one of: horizontal motion and vertical motion. Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 3 Id. at 22 (emphases added). Each of independent claims 11 and 20 recites limitations corresponding to the disputed limitations of claim 1. Id. at 23– 24, 25. REFERENCE AND REJECTIONS The Examiner relies upon the following reference: Name3 Reference Issued Filed Myron US 5,640,143 June 17, 1997 Feb. 6, 1995 The Examiner rejects: a. claims 1–19 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as lacking adequate written description (Final Act. 6–7); b. claim 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as claiming patent ineligible subject matter (id. at 9); and c. claims 1–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the teachings of Myron (id. at 12–21). We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant, and in light of the contentions and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). The Examiner and Appellant focus their findings and contentions, respectively, on the claims 1, 11, and 20; so we do as well. See Appeal Br. 15, 17, 18; Ans. 15, 18, 19–22. Arguments not made are forfeited.4 Unless otherwise indicated, we adopt the Examiner’s findings in 3 The reference citation is to the first named inventor only. 4 See In re Google Tech. Holdings LLC, 980 F.3d 858, 863 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (“Because Google failed to present these claim construction arguments to the Board, Google forfeited both arguments.”); 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2019) (“Except as provided for in §§ 41.41, 41.47 and 41.52, any arguments Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 4 the Final Office Action and the Answer as our own and add any additional findings of fact for emphasis. We address the rejections below. ANALYSIS A. Adequate Written Description The Examiner rejects claims 1–19 as lacking adequate written description. Final Act. 6–7. In particular, claim 1 recites, “triggering, responsive to determining that the object motion is not associated with the at least one motion characteristic, an alert; wherein the at least one motion characteristic comprises at least one of: horizontal motion and vertical motion.” Appeal Br. 22 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). Claim 11 recites a corresponding limitation. Id. at 23–24. The Examiner finds: The claim, as amended, suggests that the alert is not triggered if the motion characteristic is horizontal motion, which is contrary to the specification that expressly disclose: “Therefore, small objects falling slowly downward in the optical field, although detected, are ignored, whereas objects moving horizontally or quickly are detected and cause an alarm (lines 13-15 of ¶[0015], emphasis added). Final Act. 7; see Ans. 16–17. As our reviewing court explained, The test for determining compliance with the written description requirement is whether the disclosure of the application as originally filed reasonably conveys to the artisan that the inventor had possession at that time of the later claimed subject or authorities not included in the appeal brief will be refused consideration by the Board for purposes of the present appeal.”). Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 5 matter, rather than the presence or absence of literal support in the specification for the claim language. In re Kaslow, 707 F.2d 1366, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (citations omitted) (emphasis added). Appellant contends that the Specification’s disclosure, upon which the Examiner relies, “provides a non-limiting example of how a particular object motion may be ignored.” Appeal Br. 16 (citing Spec. ¶ 15). In particular, as the Specification suggests, the scenario described in paragraph 15 “is merely an example and persons having ordinary skill in the art will realize that weather conditions may produce both vertical object motions (e.g., raining, snowing, etc.) and horizontal object motion (e.g., wind causing rain, snow, other objects, etc. to move in a substantially horizontal fashion, etc.).” Id. at 17. We agree with Appellant. The Specification discloses, “False motion detection, e.g., detection of a tree branch that moves in the wind, detection of traffic on a street, or the like, is often encountered and must be dealt with in order to preserve the usefulness of motion detection.” Spec. ¶ 1. Further, the Specification discloses, “For example, if the wind speed is greater than a determined speed (e.g., 10mph), then the sensitivity of the motion detection can be compensated to reduce false alarms like moving tree limbs.” Id. ¶ 15. The claimed subject matter need not be described “in haec verba” in the original specification in order to satisfy the written description requirement. In re Wright, 866 F.2d 422, 425 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (emphasis added). We are persuaded that a person of ordinary skill in the relevant art would have understood that wind travels in a generally horizontal direction and similarly causes objects, such as tree limbs, to move in a generally horizontal direction. See Final Act. 15 (discussing “visible motion of a leaves (a visible object) of a tree by wind, or visible motion of dust and dirt (visible object) in Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 6 the air caused by wind”); cf. Spec. ¶ 15 (disclosing vertically falling small objects, such as raindrops and snowflakes). Thus, we are persuaded that a person of ordinary skill in the relevant art would have understood Appellant was in possession of the methods and devices, as recited in claims 1 and 11, respectively. For the reasons given above, we are persuaded the Examiner errs in rejecting claims 1–19 as lacking adequate written description in the Specification. Consequently, we do not sustain this rejection of claims 1 and 11, nor do we sustain this rejection of claims 2–10 and 12–19, which the Examiner rejects due to the alleged deficiencies in their base claims. B. Ineligible Subject Matter The Examiner rejects claim 20 as claiming patent ineligible subject matter. Final Act. 9. Claim 20 recites, “A product, comprising: a computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon.” Appeal Br. 25 (Claims App.). The Examiner finds the claimed products impermissibly encompass both transitory and non-transitory media. Final Act. 9 (citing In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 1356–57 (Fed. Cir. 2007)). The Examiner further finds a claim encompassing both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended to include the limitation “non-transitory” in order to overcome the patent eligibility rejection. Ans. 19 (citing David J. Kappos, Subject Matter Eligibility of Computer Readable Media, 1351 OFF. GAZ. PAT. & TRADEMARK OFFICE 212 (Feb. 23, 2010) (https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/og/2010/week08/ TOC.htm#ref20)) (hereinafter “Subject Matter Eligibility”). Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 7 Appellant contends “computer readable storage medium” cannot be interpreted as encompassing a signal, i.e., transitory, medium. Appeal Br. 17. We disagree. In particular, the Specification discloses: It should be noted that the various functions described herein may be implemented using instructions stored on a device readable storage medium such as a non-signal storage device that are executed by a processor. A storage device may be, for example, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples of a storage medium would include the following: a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read- only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a storage device is not a signal and “non-transitory” includes all media except signal media. Spec. ¶ 38 (emphases added). Thus, “a device readable storage medium,” e.g., “a computer readable storage medium,” may be “a non-signal storage device,” but “a device readable storage medium” clearly is broader than such a “storage device.” Final Act. 9 (“A claim drawn to such ‘a computer readable storage medium’ that covers both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended.”); see Ans. 18–19. The Specification states embodiments of a “storage device” may comprise “non-transitory” implementations, but does not provide any limits on “a computer readable storage medium,” as recited in claim 20. Because the record before us does not provide a definition for “computer readable storage medium,” which expressly excludes transitory media, the term is construed under the broadest reasonable interpretation to encompass Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 8 transitory media, and, thus, the claim is directed to non-statutory-subject matter. See Ex parte Mewherter, 107 USPQ2d 1857 (PTAB 2013) (precedential). “When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claim must be rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter.” Subject Matter Eligibility 212 (emphasis added). Here, Appellant does not persuade us that the Examiner errs in interpreting the term “computer readable storage medium” in claim 20. Consequently, we sustain the rejection of claim 20 as directed to patent ineligible subject matter.5 C. Obviousness Over Myron As noted above, the Examiner rejects claims 1–20 as obvious over the teachings of Myron. Final Act. 12–21. In particular, the Examiner finds Myron teaches or suggests all of the limitations of independent claims 1, 11, and 20. For the reasons given below, we are not persuaded the Examiner errs in these findings. 5 Although we sustain this rejection, Appellant may readily overcome this rejection by amending claim 20 as the Examiner proposes. Final Act. 9 (“Therefore, the Examiner recommends to narrow the scope of the claim to cover only statutory embodiments by amending the claim to include the limitation ‘a non-transitory computer readable storage medium’ in order to overcome the rejection under 35 USC § 101.”); see Subject Matter Eligibility at 212 (“A claim drawn to such a computer readable medium that covers both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 by adding the limitation ‘non-transitory’ to the claim.”). Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 9 Appellant contends that the Examiner errs in finding Myron teaches or suggests the disputed limitations of claim 1, as well as the corresponding limitations of claims 11 and 20. Appeal Br. 9–10, 24–25. Specifically, Appellant contends, first, “nowhere in Myron is ‘external data corresponding to a current environmental weather condition’ disclosed or even suggested” (Appeal Br. 19); and, second, “Myron does not teach ‘adjusting . . . responsive to determining that the attribute exceeds the predetermined threshold, a motion detection feature to ignore at least one motion characteristic associated with the current environmental weather condition’” (id. at 19–20). See Reply Br. 21–22. We disagree with Appellant. First, Appellant contends, the underlying specification states that “[i]n order to mitigate false motion detection in security devices, an embodiment gathers external data, e.g., current weather conditions such as wind speed, whether it is raining or snowing, whether there is bright sunlight that causes harsh shadows, etc.”. Specification at [0015]. Accordingly, it is clear that “external data corresponding to a current environmental weather condition” corresponds to ongoing, outdoor weather conditions. Appeal Br. 19 (emphasis added); Reply Br. 21. Appellant contends that Myron only teaches or suggests, “the presence of air motion from wind and ventilation may trip an ultrasonic sensor.” Appeal Br. 19; see Myron, 1:53– 55 (“In addition, air motion from wind and ventilation may trip an ultrasonic sensor by mistake.” (emphasis added)); 10:57–60 (“The register BPAVE gets the running average of AVC1 times SSGAIN, the current sensitivity 174, and is then clipped 175 to aid in reducing false tripping from wind noise.” (emphasis added)). Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 10 The Examiner finds, it is noted that the external data is interpreted as data external to the device, which is received by the security device. It should also be noted that there is no reference to any indoor or outdoor environment in the claims, where an indoor or outdoor security device, could be affected by indoor or outdoor environmental weather condition. Ans. 21. We agree with the Examiner’s interpretation of claim 1, and we further are persuaded that Myron’s disclosure of “air motion from wind” and “wind noise” teaches or suggests, “external data corresponding to a current environmental weather condition,” especially, an outdoor weather condition. Cf. Spec. ¶¶ 15 (“For example, if the wind speed is greater than a determined speed (e.g., 10mph), then the sensitivity of the motion detection can be compensated to reduce false alarms like moving tree limbs.” (emphases added)), 30 (“transmitting any motion detection data that typically would trigger an alarm to another, remote device for further processing, e.g., using another motion detection algorithm that is optimized to detect repetitive movement, e.g., of tree branches [that] blow in the wind, and to filter out the same.” (emphasis added)). Appellant does not persuade us of Examiner error by this first contention. Second, Appellant contends, the cited portion of Myron discloses that “when the lights are off and the sensor senses motion, the sensor can check the ambient light level through use of the circuit of FIG. 10. If it is bright enough in the room that the lights are unnecessary, the sensor can elect not to switch the lights on . . . Myron at col. 5, lines 32 – 37. Such a teaching simply discloses that when motion is detected in a room and an ambient light level is greater than a predetermined threshold, then a system does not need to turn on additional lights in that room. Applicant respectfully submits Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 11 that such a teaching does not “ignore at least one motion characteristic associated with the current environmental weather condition”. Appeal Br. 19–20 (emphasis added); see Reply Br. 20–21; see also Myron, 7:26–36 (“When the lights are off and the sensor senses motion, the sensor can check the ambient light level through use of the circuit of FIG. 10.”). Thus, in this embodiment of Myron’s sensor, when the sensor detects motion in a room, but there is adequate ambient light, the sensor need not turn on additional lights. Appellant contends this embodiment does not teach or suggest ignoring motion associated with at least one current environmental weather condition. Nevertheless, the Specification discloses, “current weather conditions such as wind speed, whether it is raining or snowing, whether there is bright sunlight that causes harsh shadows.” Spec. ¶ 15 (emphasis added). Thus, the Specification broadly discloses the types of weather conditions that the motion detection feature may “ignore” are tantamount to those in the cited disclosure of Myron. See Ans. 21, 22. Moreover, the applied reference “must be considered for all that it teaches to those of ordinary skill in the art, not just the embodiments disclosed therein.” In re Arora, 369 F. App’x 120, 122 (Fed. Cir. 2010); see In re Inland Steel Co., 265 F.3d 1354, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2001); In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1264 (Fed. Cir. 1992). Here, Myron teaches or suggests detecting motion using ultrasonic sensors and employing noise filtering that would include wind noise filtering to avoid false alarms. Final Act. 14–15 (citing Myron Abstract, 1:54–58); see Ans. 20–21; see also Myron, 10:11– 21, 57–60 (describing filtering to prevent false alarms, such as due to wind noise). Thus, the Examiner finds: Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 12 Myron et al. do disclose the false detection caused by air motion from wind, i.e., environmental weather condition (lines 54-58 of col. 1) but do not expressly disclose such motion is a visible motion of an object influenced by the current environmental weather conditions, e.g., visible motion of a leaves (a visible object) of a tree by wind, or visible motion of dust and dirt (visible object) in the air caused by wind[, e.g., horizontal motion]. However, Myron et al. also disclose, among others, the false detection of hallway traffic (abstract), i.e. a visible motion of an object and means to rectify it. One of the ordinary skill understands that false detection of such visible motion (hallway traffic) is substantially similar to the false detection of the visible motion of an object caused by environmental weather condition, e.g., wind. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to use teaching of Myron et al. in order to compensate for the above mentioned false detection by using automatic sensitivity adjustment that reduce false detection, as suggested by Myron et al. (abstract). Final Act. 15; see In re Preda, 401 F.2d 825, 826 (CCPA 1968) (“[I]t is proper to take into account not only specific teachings of the reference but also the inferences which one skilled in the art would reasonably be expected to draw therefrom.”). Thus, the Examiner finds Myron teaches or suggests the disputed, “adjusting” step, as recited in claims 1, 11, and 20. On this record, we agree with the Examiner. Appellant does not persuade us that the Examiner errs in finding Myron teaches or suggests the disputed limitations of independent claim 1, as well as independent claims 11 and 20, or in rejecting those claims as obvious over the teachings of Myron. Consequently, we sustain the rejection of those claims. Further, Appellant does not challenge the obviousness rejection of claims 2–10 and 12–19, separately; and, therefore, we also sustain the rejection of those claims. See Appeal Br. 20. Appeal 2020-004200 Application 15/217,630 13 DECISIONS 1. The Examiner errs in rejecting claims 1–19 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as lacking adequate written description. 2. The Examiner does not err in rejecting: a. claim 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as claiming patent ineligible subject matter; and b. claims 1–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the teachings of Myron. 3. Thus, on this record, claims 1–20 are not patentable. CONCLUSION Because we sustain at least one rejection of each of the pending claims, we affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–20. In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–19 112(a) Written Description 1–19 20 101 Eligibility 20 1–20 103 Myron 1–20 Overall Outcome 1–20 No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation