Oliver Lei et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

May 22, 2020

2019000660 (P.T.A.B. May. 22, 2020)

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.
15/184,312 06/16/2016 Oliver LEI 83672570 2606
28395 7590 05/22/2020
BROOKS KUSHMAN P.C./FGTL
1000 TOWN CENTER
22ND FLOOR
SOUTHFIELD, MI 48075-1238
EXAMINER
WANG, QUAN ZHEN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2684
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/22/2020 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):
docketing@brookskushman.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte OLIVER LEI, ALLEN R. MURRAY, and
TUAN ANH BE
____________________

Appeal 2019-000660
Application 15/184,3121
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before JON M. JURGOVAN, ADAM J. PYONIN, and
KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judges.

JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appellant seeks review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final
Rejection of claims 1–7, constituting all of the claims pending in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.2

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. According to Appellant, the real party in interest is
Ford Global Technologies, LLC. Appeal Br. 2.
2 Our Decision refers to the Specification (“Spec.”) filed June 16, 2016, the
Final Office Action (“Final Act.”) mailed March 12, 2018, the After-Final
Amendment filed May 23, 2018, the Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.”) filed May
24, 2018, the Advisory Action mailed June 6, 2018, the Examiner’s Answer
(“Ans.”) mailed August 30, 2018, and the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed
Appeal 2019-000660
Application 15/184,312

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CLAIMED INVENTION
The claims are directed to a system comprising a vehicle processor
which wirelessly transmits a vehicle occupant’s medical data to a public
safety assistance point (PSAP) in response to detecting a vehicle accident.
Spec. Abstract, ¶ 4.
Claim 1 is independent. Claims 2–7 depend from claim 1. Claim 1 is
reproduced below:
1. A system comprising:
a vehicle processor configured to:
wirelessly send an instruction to a remote server to
transfer vehicle occupant medical data to a public safety
assistance point (PSAP), in response to detecting a vehicle
accident.
Appeal Br. 8 (Claims Appendix 1).

REJECTIONS3
(1) Claims 1 and 5–7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over
Akula (US 2016/ 0303969 A1, June 24, 2004). Final Act. 4–5.
(2) Claims 2–4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 based on
Akula and Kirsch (US 2016/ 0303969 A1, June 24, 2004). Final Act. 6–8.

October 30, 2018.
3 In the After-Final Amendment, Appellant amended claims 2–5 to
overcome certain objections identified in the Final Office Action. By
Advisory Action mailed June 6, 2018, the Examiner acknowledged entry of
the After-Final Amendment and indicated that the amendments were
sufficient to overcome the objections to claims 2–5. The After-Final
Amendment also canceled claims 8–20. Accordingly, the objections and
§ 112 and § 103 rejections of claims 8–20 in the Final Office Action are
moot and we do not address them further in this decision.
Appeal 2019-000660
Application 15/184,312

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ANALYSIS
§ 103 Rejections
A patent claim is unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103 if the
differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art are such that
the subject matter, as a whole, would have been obvious at the time the
invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said
subject matter pertains. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 406
(2007). The question of obviousness is resolved on the basis of underlying
factual determinations including: (1) the scope and content of the prior art;
(2) any differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art;
(3) the level of ordinary skill in the art; and (4) where present, objective
evidence of nonobviousness. Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17–18
(1966).
Claims 1 and 5–7
The Examiner finds that Akula teaches claim 1. Final Act. 4–5.
Appellant disagrees with the Examiner, arguing that Akula fails to teach or
suggest the claimed “instruction to a remote server to transfer vehicle
occupant medical data to a public safety assistance point (PSAP).” Appeal
Br. 5–7. Appellant notes that the Examiner acknowledges Akula does not
explicitly send an instruction. Id. at 6. Appellant contends the Examiner
uses faulty logic by linking dictionary definitions for an “instruction” as an
“order or command,” and a “command” as “a signal that actuates a device”
in concluding that Akula teaches the claimed “instruction.” Id. at 5–6;
Reply Br. 2–3. Appellant further argues “[a]ll Akula teaches is that data is
sent from the vehicle to the server. The server then chooses what to do with
the data. The vehicle never instructs the server to do anything.”
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Appeal Br. 6. Appellant states that the Examiner finds that Akula’s server
could do something else with the received data, like store it, so the server
must have received an instruction to transfer the occupant information to the
call center (PSAP). Id. Appellant argues this is incorrect reasoning because
the server could have internal logic causing it to electively decide what to do
with the received data in the absence of an explicit instruction from the
vehicle processor. Id.
Akula’s Figure 1 is reproduced below.

Akula’s Figure 1 shows a system 100 including vehicles 101 with respective
devices 102, 104, 106, and sensors 112, all having processors 105 and
transceivers 109. Akula ¶ 9. Devices 102, 104, 106, and sensors 112
connect via communication links 119 to subscriber network 117. Id. Server
114 and call center 113 are also connected to subscriber network 117. Id.
Call center 113 may be a PSAP. Id. at ¶ 42. Subscriber network 117 may be
a packet-switched network. Id. at ¶¶ 12, 13.
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Akula’s sensor 112 may be configured to detect and communicate
occupant information, such as a medical issue indicating a bodily disorder of
an occupant, or a vehicle issue such as an accident, or both, using transceiver
109 to communicate with devices 102, 104, 106, and server 114. Id. at
¶¶ 10, 15–16. Devices 102, 104, and server 114 may be configured to send
occupant information to device 102e of call center 113. Id. at ¶ 48.
Appellant seeks to distinguish claim 1 over Akula on the basis of the
information content of the instruction, i.e., that it is an “instruction to a
remote server to transfer vehicle occupant medical data to a public safety
assistance point (PSAP).” The claim, however, does not recite that the
vehicle processor actually sends the instruction to the remote server, or that
the remote server receives and acts upon it to transfer vehicle occupant
medical data to the PSAP. As such, the instruction is merely information
content unrelated to any underlying substrate, and the vehicle sensor’s
configuration to generate this information is not enough to constitute a
patentable distinction. “Claim limitations directed to the content of
information and lacking a requisite functional relationship are not entitled to
patentable weight.” Praxair Distribution, Inc. v. Mallinckrodt Hospital
Products IP Ltd., 890 F.3d 1024, 1032 (Fed. Cir. 2018). Accordingly, the
claimed “instruction” lacks patentable weight to distinguish over Akula.
Even if we did give patentable weight to the claimed “instruction,”
Akula (¶¶ 42, 48) teaches that vehicle devices 102, 104, and server 114 send
occupant information to the call center (PSAP) 113. A person of ordinary
skill in the art would have recognized that Akula’s teaching would be
implemented by the devices sending the occupant information to the server
along with an instruction to forward such information to the call center
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Application 15/184,312

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(PSAP). “[I]n considering the disclosure of a reference, it is proper to take
into account not only specific teachings of the reference but also the
inferences which one skill in the art would reasonably be expected to draw
therefrom.” In re Preda, 401 F.2d 825, 826 (CCPA 1968). In this regard,
we also note that “[a] person of ordinary skill in the art is a person of
ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” KSR, 550 U.S. at 420–21.
Furthermore, Akula (¶¶ 12, 13) teaches that its subscriber network
117 may be a packet-switched network. A person of ordinary skill in the art
would have known that, in a packet-switched network, Akula’s vehicle
devices would generate packets addressed to the call center (PSAP) to
transfer occupant information to the call center. The call center’s destination
address in the packets effectively acts as an instruction to intermediate
servers on the network, such as server 114, to forward the occupant
information to the call center. Thus, considering Akula’s teachings (¶¶ 12,
13, 42, 48) and the general knowledge a person of ordinary skill in the art
would have had about packet-switched networks, Akula teaches, or at least
suggests, the claimed invention. Koninklijke Philips N.V. v. Google LLC,
948 F.3d 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (general knowledge of a person of ordinary
skill in the art may be used to support obviousness challenge).
Accordingly, even if the claimed “instruction” is entitled to patentable
weight, we agree with the Examiner that “[i]t is obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art that the communication between device 102a of vehicle 101a
to server 114 would include an instruction to cause the server 114 to transmit
the occupant information to device 102e of call center 113.” Final Act. 4–5.
The Examiner’s rejection cites to parts of Akula that teach, or at least
suggest, the “instruction” as claimed.
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Thus, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments that the
Examiner errs in the § 103 rejection of claim 1.
No separate arguments are made for dependent claims 5–7, which fall
with claim 1 for the same reasons. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Claims 2–4
Appellant argues for patentability of dependent claims 2–4 on the
basis that Kirsch fails to overcome the alleged deficiencies of Akula with
respect to claim 1. Appeal Br. 7. As we determine that Akula is not
deficient, and Appellant presents no separate arguments for claims 2–4, we
sustain the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of claims 2–4 for the reasons stated
for claim 1. Id.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–7 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 are
affirmed.

Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 5–7 103 Akula 1, 5–7
2–4 103 Akula, Kirsch 2–4
Overall
Outcome
1–7

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