APPLIED CONCEPTS, INC.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 30, 2021

2020001143 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 30, 2021)

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. 15/851,215 12/21/2017 Stanley A. Walker 013639.00031 7458 33649 7590 04/30/2021 Mr. Christopher John Rourk Jackson Walker LLP 2323 ROSS AVENUE SUITE 600 DALLAS, TX 75201 EXAMINER PHAM, QUANG ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2684 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/30/2021 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 STANLEY A. WALKER and WEI-JIE HE Appeal 2020-001143 Application 15/851,215 Technology Center 2600 Before JEAN R. HOMERE, MICHAEL J. ENGLE, and PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges. HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant appeals from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-20, all of the claims pending.2 Claims App. (Appeal Br. 22-27). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 We refer to the Specification filed Dec. 21, 2017 (“Spec.”); the Final Office Action, mailed Feb. 19, 2019 (“Final Act.”); the Appeal Brief, filed Aug. 20, 2019 (“Appeal Br.”); and the Examiner’s Answer, mailed Sept. 27, 2019 (“Ans.”). 2 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies Applied Concepts, Inc., as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 4. Appeal 2020-001143 Application 15/851,215 2 II. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claimed subject matter relates to speed detection devices and methods for managing and remotely displaying detection of a speed measuring device (e.g. RADAR, LIDAR). Spec. ¶¶ 2-4. Figure 1, reproduced below, is useful for understanding the claimed subject matter: Figure 1 above illustrates mounted radar unit (10) communicating detected speed data of a moving object to mobile device (12) for subsequent analysis, storage, and display. Id. ¶¶ 12-14. Appeal 2020-001143 Application 15/851,215 3 Claims 1, 9, and 14 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below with disputed limitations emphasized, is illustrative: 1. A system for managing and remotely displaying detection information of a speed measuring device, comprising: a personal computer; at least one storage resource for managing resources of the system at the speed measuring device wherein the speed measuring device processor is configured to execute application code instruction that are stored in the storage resource to cause the system to: receive vehicle tracking data at the speed measuring device; store the tracking data at the speed measuring device in the storage resource; send the tracking data to the personal computing device; receive the tracking data from the speed measuring device at the personal computing device; store the tracking data at the personal computing device in the storage resource; and display the tracking data at the personal computing device; wherein the speed measuring device is communicable coupled with the personal computing device over a peer to peer wired or wireless network. Appeal Br. 22 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). III. REFERENCES The Examiner relies upon the following references.3 Name Reference Date Wright US 6,161,066 Dec. 12, 2000 Hynes US 2016/0174132 A1 June 16, 2016 Brisimitzakis US 2017/0160392 A1 June 8, 2017 3 All reference citations are to the first named inventor only. Appeal 2020-001143 Application 15/851,215 4 IV. REJECTIONS The Examiner rejects claims 1-20 as follows: Claims 1-3, 5-11, 13-16, and 18-20 stand rejected as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over the combined teachings of Brisimitzakis and Hynes. Final Act. 5-22. Claims 4, 12, and 17 stand rejected as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over the combined teachings of Brisimitzakis, Hynes, and Wright. Id. at 22- 25. V. ANALYSIS We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim, as they are presented in the Appeal Brief, pages 8-21.4 We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s contentions. Except as otherwise indicated herein below, we adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the Final Action, and the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief. Final Act. 2- 26; Ans. 3-16. However, we highlight and address specific arguments and findings for emphasis as follows. Appellant argues that the Examiner errs in finding that the combination of Brisimitzakis and Hynes teaches or suggests storing tracking data in the storage resource of a personal computing device, as recited in independent claim 1. Appeal Br. 10. In particular, Appellant argues that Brisimitzakis’s tracking module only stores the tracking data in a local resource (i.e., in the claimed “speed measuring device,” not the claimed “personal computer”) because there is no reason to transmit or store the 4 We have considered in this Decision only those arguments Appellant actually raised in the Briefs. Arguments not made are forfeited. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2017). Appeal 2020-001143 Application 15/851,215 5 tracking data elsewhere. Id. at 8-9 (citing Brisimitzakis, Fig. 3). Further, Appellant argues that although Hynes discloses transmitting speed data (as opposed to tracking data) through a mobile device (i.e., the claimed “personal computer”), Hynes does not store speed data in the mobile devices. Id. at 9-10 (citing Hynes Fig. 4b). According to Appellant, Hynes only discloses determining the speed of the device for which texting is to be blocked (as opposed to the speed of another vehicle) and transmitting it to a personal computer. Id. at 11. Appellant’s arguments are not persuasive of reversible Examiner error because they are tantamount to an individual attack against Brisimitzakis and Hynes, as opposed to addressing the combined teachings of cited references, as relied upon by the Examiner in the rejection of claim 1. One cannot show non-obviousness by attacking the references or the embodiments thereof individually where the rejections are based on the combined teachings of the references and/or embodiments. In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986); see also In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981). The Examiner relies upon Brisimitzakis’s disclosure of a radar unit transmitting, to an electronic device mounted on a bicycle, target data (including a video depicting the relative distance and speed) of a moving object captured in the radar unit’s field of view behind the bicycle to teach a speed measuring device transmitting tracking data to a mobile device. Ans. 4-5 (citing Brisimitzakis ¶¶ 6, 18, 26, 69, 72, 96, Fig. 3). The Examiner further relies upon Brisimitzakis’s disclosure of a first trigger condition causing target data to be captured, transmitted to the mobile device, stored, and analyzed to teach a computing device storing the captured tracking data. Id. (citing Brisimitzakis ¶ 117). We agree with the Examiner that the cited Appeal 2020-001143 Application 15/851,215 6 disclosures of Brisimitzakis teach transmitting target data about a moving object to a computing device, and storing received target data in a storage resource of a personal computer. Id. Additionally, the Examiner relies upon Hynes’s disclosure of providing the speed signal of an on-board diagnostic equipment to a mobile device (e.g., SIM card on a cell phone) to teach storing tracking data at the in the resource storage of a personal computing device. Ans. 5 (citing Hynes ¶¶ 30, 31, Abstr.).5 For example, Hynes discloses that “[i]n some embodiments, an [On-Board Diagnostics] computer access port in a vehicle may be used to provide the speed signal of the on- board diagnostic equipment to a mobile device (e.g., to a SIM card on a cell phone).” Hynes ¶ 31. We therefore find the Examiner’s proposed combination of the cited teachings of Brisimitzakis and Hynes is no more than a simple arrangement of old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform, yielding no more than what one would expect from such an arrangement. See KSR, 550 U.S. at 416. Therefore, the ordinarily skilled artisan, being “a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton,” would have been able to fit the teachings of the cited references together like pieces of a puzzle to predictably result in a mobile device in a bicycle storing in a SIM card tracking data about a 5 “The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference . . . . Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.” Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425. “The obviousness analysis cannot be confined by [the] formalistic conception of the words teaching, suggestion, and motivation, or by overemphasis on the importance of . . . the explicit content of issued patents.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 419 (2007). Appeal 2020-001143 Application 15/851,215 7 moving object received from a radar unit for subsequent analysis and display. Id. at 420-21. Because Appellant has not demonstrated that the Examiner’s proffered combination would have been “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art,” we agree with the Examiner that the proposed modification would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled artisan. See Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418). Consequently, we are satisfied that, on this record, the Examiner has established by a preponderance of the evidence that the combination of Brisimitzakis and Hynes teaches or suggests the disputed claim limitations. Because we are not persuaded of Examiner error, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 as unpatentable over the combination of Brisimitzakis and Hynes. Regarding the rejection of claims 2-20, to the extent that Appellant does not present separate patentability arguments or reiterates substantially the same arguments as those previously discussed for the patentability of claim 1 above, claims 2-20 fall therewith. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). Appeal Br. 11-21. To the extent that Appellant argues claims 2-20 separately, we find the Examiner’s response to those arguments in the Answer constitutes, by a preponderance of the evidence, a full and complete rebuttal, which we adopt and incorporate herein by reference. Ans. 5-16. Consequently, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 2-20. VI. CONCLUSION For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-20. Appeal 2020-001143 Application 15/851,215 8 VII. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1-3, 5-11, 13-16, 18-20 103 Brisimitzakis, Hynes 1-3, 5-11, 13-16, 18-20 4, 12, 17 103 Brisimitzakis, Hynes, Wright 4, 12, 17 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)(1). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED