Ex Parte Alsafadi

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 15, 2017

12747548 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 15, 2017)

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. 12/747,548 02/14/2011 Yasser Alsafadi 2007P01427WOUS 7283 38107 7590 03/17/2017 PTTTT TPS TNTFT T FfTTTAT PROPFRTY fr STANDARDS EXAMINER 465 Columbus Avenue ADNAN, MUHAMMAD Suite 340 Valhalla, NY 10595 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2686 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/17/2017 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): marianne. fox @ philips, com debbie.henn @philips .com patti.demichele@philips.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte YASSER ALSAFADI Appeal 2016-007512 Application 12/747,548 Technology Center 2600 Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, KEVIN C. TROCK, and DAVID J. CUTITTAII, Administrative Patent Judges. BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejections of claims 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 15—17, 19-23 and 25. App. Br. 16.1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Rather than repeat the Examiner’s positions and Appellant’s arguments in their entirety, we refer to the following documents for their respective details: the Final Action mailed January 2, 2015 (“Final Act.”); the Appeal Brief filed May 27, 2015, as corrected July 30, 2015 (“App. Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer mailed June 3, 2016 (“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief filed August 1, 2016 (“Reply Br.”). Appeal 2016-007512 Application 12/747,548 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant describes the present invention as follows: An apparatus that identifies an object includes a frequency detector (112) that detects a frequency over which an RFID tag (102) communicates, and an object identifier (120) that identifies the object based at least in part upon the detected frequency. The frequency detector may detect a plurality of frequencies over which a plurality of RFID tags transmit information. The apparatus also optionally includes a frequency pattern generator that generates a frequency pattern that is indicative of an identity of the object, wherein the object identifier compares the generated frequency pattern with known frequency patterns to determine the identity of the object. Abstract. Independent claim 1, reproduced below with emphasis added, is illustrative of the appealed claims: 1. An apparatus that identifies an object, comprising: a plurality of RFID tags disposed with the object wherein each RFID tag includes an integrated circuit for storing information in memory, processing information, and modulating or demodulating a radio frequency (RF) signal and an antenna for receiving and transmitting RF signals; an RFID reader that receives signals including information comprising content stored in memory from the plurality of RFID tags, the RFID reader further including a frequency detector that detects a plurality of frequencies over which the plurality of RFID tags transmit said information; a frequency pattern generator that receives frequency information detected by the RFID reader and generates a frequency pattern based on the received frequency information, the frequency pattern having the general form (A/7; B/2; . . . X/n}, where A, B, . . . Xare integers that indicate the number of RFID tags that transmit respective signals including information over each respective frequency fl,f2,..., fn, and n is a number of frequencies detected; and 2 Appeal 2016-007512 Application 12/747,548 an object identifier that receives the generated frequency pattern and compares the generated frequency pattern to known frequency patterns and, based on the comparison, identifies the object. Claims 1, 5, 9, 10, 16, and 20-23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Fujimoto Astushi et al. (JP2004198139 (A); published July 15, 2004) (“Fujimoto”) and Shaffer et al. (US 2006/0220856 Al; published Oct. 5, 2006) (“Shaffer”).2 Claims 4, 7, 15, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Fujimoto, Shaffer, and Schmidtberg et al. (US 2004/0155106 Al; published Aug. 12, 2004) (“Schmidtberg”). Claim 19 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Fujimoto, Shaffer, Schmidtberg, and Tanaka et al. (US 2003/0197612 Al; published Oct. 23, 2003) (“Tanaka”). Claim 25 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Fujimoto, Shaffer, and Chen (US 2006/0267731 Al; published Nov. 30, 2006) (“Chen”). We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). FINDINGS AND CONTENTIONS The Examiner finds that Fujimoto discloses all of the claim limitations except for teaching that the disclosed tags are RFID tags. Final Act. 4. The 2 Claim 10 was previously also rejected as indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) / § 112,12 (pre-AIA) for lacking adequate antecedent basis, but the Examiner withdrew the rejection in the Examiner’s Answer. Ans. 2. 3 Appeal 2016-007512 Application 12/747,548 Examiner finds that Shaffer teaches RFID tags that comprise a memory, as well as all of the other specifics of the claimed RFID tags, and the Examiner further finds that motivation existed to combine the teachings. Id. at 4—5. Particularly noteworthy is the Examiner’s interpretation of the limitation of claim 1 that sets forth the frequency pattern generator generates a frequency pattern based on the received frequency information, the frequency pattern having the general form {Afl, B/2, . . . , Xfn}, where A, B, ... X are integers that indicate the number of RFID tags that transmit respective signals including information over each respective frequency fl,f2, . . . ,fn, and n is a number of frequencies detected. More specifically, the Examiner reasons that appellant has not included any claim limitations on the required number of coefficients A, B ... N or number of detected frequencies (n) which means that the limitations as broadly interpreted and claimed includes the frequency pattern {lfl} where only one tag is using a single frequency f 1. Ans. 4. Restated, the Examiner interprets the claim limitation as being broad enough to read on a system that reads on a frequency pattern generator that merely indicates the frequencies of unique-frequency tags, thereby implying that one tag of a given frequency is present, without otherwise indicating the number of tags that correspond to a given unique frequency. Appellant asserts “there is no fair suggestion to modify the frequency pattern of the general form {fl,f2, . . . ,fn}, which is what is actually disclosed in Fujimoto, to the general form {Afl, B/2, . . . , Xfn} as recited in claim 1.” App. Br. 11. In other words, Appellant argues that the claims require the frequency pattern generator to indicate specifically how many tags are transmitting at each detected frequency, in addition to indicating the particular tag frequencies that are detected. Id. at 10-11. 4 Appeal 2016-007512 Application 12/747,548 ANALYSIS The claimed general form [A/7, B/2, . . . , Xfn} clearly indicates that the generated frequency pattern specifies how many tags are transmitting at each detected frequency—not merely the particular tag frequencies that are detected. To ignore this additional number-of-tags requirement effectively reads the coefficients A, B, ... X out of the claim. See Merck & Co. v. leva Pharms. USA, Inc., 395 F.3d 1364, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (indicating that “[a] claim construction that gives meaning to all the terms of the claim is preferred over one that does not do so”). That is, even if only one tag is transmitting at any given detected frequency, the claims still require that the frequency pattern generator indicate that only one tag, as opposed to some greater number of tags, is transmitting at that frequency. For the foregoing reasons, Appellant has persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claims 1, 10, and 23, which each recites similar requirements. Accordingly, we do not sustain the obviousness rejection of those independent claims or of claims 5, 9, 16, and 20-22, which depend from claims 1 and 10. With respect to the remaining rejections of dependent claims 4, 7, 15, 17, 19, and 25, the Examiner does not rely on any of the additionally cited prior art references to cure the deficiency of the obviousness rejection explained above. Ans. 10-14. Accordingly, we do not sustain the obviousness rejections of these claims for the reasons set forth above. 5 Appeal 2016-007512 Application 12/747,548 DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 15—17, 19- 23, and 25 is reversed. REVERSED 6