Ex Parte Aubry et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 21, 2017

13113008 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 21, 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. 13/113,008 05/20/2011 Jean-Philippe Aubry PT1124US00 8688 132326 7590 Thompson Hine LLP 10050 Innovation Drive Suite 400 Dayton, OH 45342-4934 12/26/2017 EXAMINER VETTER, DANIEL ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3628 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/26/2017 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): ipdocket @ thompsonhine. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JEAN-PHILIPPE AUBRY, BENOIT JANIN, RUDY DANIELLO, LUC ISNARDY, and CLAUDINE REYNAUD Appeal 2016-008329 Application 13/113,008 Technology Center 3600 Before HUNG H. BUI, JOYCE CRAIG, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. Opinion for the Board filed by Administrative Patent Judge CRAIG. Opinion Dissenting filed by Administrative Patent Judge MOORE. DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING Appellants request rehearing of the October 3, 2017 Decision on Appeal (“Decision”) wherein we affirmed the rejections of claims 1, 3—8, 10—13, 15—18, and 20-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the prior art. We have reconsidered the Decision in light of Appellants’ arguments but, for the reasons given below, we are not persuaded we misapprehended or overlooked any points in our Decision. Appeal 2016-008329 Application 13/113,008 ANALYSIS We have considered the arguments raised by Appellants in the Request, but find none of these arguments persuasive that our original Decision misapprehended or overlooked any points raised by Appellants resulting in error. Appellants contend our decision is incorrect because we overlooked or misapprehended the argument that the combination of references relied upon in the rejections of claims 1, 3—8, 10-13, 15—18, and 20—22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 does not teach or suggest “receiving first and second travel queries ... including one or more parameters, and having one or more degrees of freedom” and “decomposing the first and second travel queries into a plurality of simple request elements each having no degrees of freedom,” as recited in claim 1. Appellants contend “[t]he Board appears to have misapprehended or overlooked the content of the disclosure of DeMarcken in reaching its Decision.” Req. Reh’g 2. Appellants then reiterate arguments similar to those already made during the appeal. Req. Reh’g 2—3; see also App. Br. 10-12; Reply Br. 2—3. In the Decision, we agreed with the Examiner that, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, claim 1 requires that the initial queries comprise only one parameter. The Examiner found, and we agreed, that DeMarcken teaches decomposing a query comprised of an airport parameter into a plurality of request elements each having no degrees of freedom. See Ans. 2 (citing DeMarcken H 21—23). In particular, the cited portion of DeMarcken teaches decomposing a query for travel to “SFO or SJC” airports into two subqueries, one for SFO and one for SJC, in which the value of the airport is set. Id. Appellants did not persuasively show that the Examiner’s 2 Appeal 2016-008329 Application 13/113,008 interpretation of claim 1 is overly broad, unreasonable, or inconsistent with the Specification. We agreed with the Examiner that DeMarcken’s teachings with respect to the decomposition of a query regarding airports SFO and SJC teach or suggest the disputed limitation of claim 1. However, as the Examiner explained, DeMarcken also teaches dividing queries into requests with no degrees of freedom with respect to both airport and date. Ans. 3. DeMarcken teaches dividing a query with a single date range into up to “N” subqueries. See Ans. 2—3 (citing DeMarcken ]f]f 33—41). DeMarcken further teaches “it may be desirable to split both the original query’s time range and its destinations” simultaneously. Ans. 2 (citing DeMarcken | 57). We explained the test for obviousness is not whether the claimed invention is expressly suggested in any one or all of the references, but whether the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art in light of the combined teachings of those references. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). Appellants did not, and do not now, persuade us that the claimed subject matter would not have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill in light of the cited portions of DeMarcken in combination with the cited teachings of Hirose. 3 Appeal 2016-008329 Application 13/113,008 DECISION Based on the foregoing, we have granted Appellants’ request to the extent that we have reconsidered our Decision, but we deny Appellants’ request to make any changes therein. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(v). REHEARING DENIED DISSENTING OPINION MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge. For the reasons stated in my dissent from the original Decision, I agree with Appellants that DeMarcken does not teach “decomposing the first and second travel queries into a plurality of simple request elements each having no degrees of freedom.” DeMarcken divides queries into sub queries, but the sub-queries all have at least one degree of freedom. I, therefore, dissent, respectfully, from the continued Decision to affirm the appealed rejection. 4