Ex Parte Bai et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 26, 2012

11839700 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 26, 2012)

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. 11/839,700 08/16/2007 Fan Bai GP-309327-RD-MJL 8984 65798 7590 09/26/2012 MILLER IP GROUP, PLC GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION 42690 WOODWARD AVENUE SUITE 200 BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI 48304 EXAMINER MORTELL, JOHN F ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2612 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/26/2012 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 FAN BAI and UPALI PRIYANTHA MUDALIGE ____________ Appeal 2011-007575 Application 11/839,700 Technology Center 2600 ____________ Before MARC S. HOFF, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and THOMAS S. HAHN, Administrative Patent Judges. KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Appeal 2011-007575 Application 11/839,700 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a message management protocol that continually transmits messages to a group of vehicles for a certain period of time and within a certain region when a hazardous road condition is detected (Spec. ¶ [0001]). Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A method for providing a warning message to a group of vehicles, said method comprising: detecting a hazardous situation by a detecting vehicle; broadcasting a warning message from the detecting vehicle; broadcasting the message by other vehicles until the message is received by all of the vehicles in a region of interest even if the detecting vehicle has left the region of interest; preventing the warning message from being broadcast for a first predetermined period of time after the vehicles in the region of the interest have received the message; selecting a host vehicle to re-broadcast the message after the first predetermined period of time has expired; preventing the message from being broadcast again for the first predetermined period of time; repeating the step of determining a host vehicle for re- broadcasting the message; and ending the broadcast of the message after a second predetermined period of time has expired. Appeal 2011-007575 Application 11/839,700 3 REFERENCES and REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Reumerman (US Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0186206 A1, Aug. 7, 2008, filed Jun. 25, 2007), Bachir, and Benslimane, “A Multicast Protocol in Ad hoc Networks Inter-Vehicle Geocast,” 57(4) Proceedings of 58th IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, 2456-24601 (2003) (hereinafter “Bachir”). The Examiner rejected claims 3, 11, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Reumerman, Bachir, and Mosko (US Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0002573 A1, Jan. 3, 2008). The Examiner rejected claims 6 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Reumerman, Bachir, and Ghosh (US Patent 7,466,664 B2, Dec. 16, 2008). The Examiner rejected claims 8 and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Reumerman, Bachir, Bauer (US Patent 7,427,929 B2, Sept. 23, 2008), and McMillin (US Patent 7,027,773 B1, Apr. 11, 2006). ANALYSIS The Examiner finds the “combination of Bachir with Reumerman results in a system that continues to re-broadcast a message according to the defer time until the time limit disclosed by Reumerman has expired” (Ans. 20-21). The “time limit disclosed by Reumerman sets an absolute limit on the overall time period during which vehicles will broadcast and re- broadcast a message. Bachir teaches the amount of time an individual Appeal 2011-007575 Application 11/839,700 4 vehicle waits between re-broadcast of the message” (Ans. 21). The Examiner then acknowledges Reumerman does not specify a period for re- broadcasting a message and reasons Reumerman does not conflict with Bachir, which discloses the amount of time an individual vehicle waits before re-broadcasting a message. Therefore, the Examiner asserts, Reumerman discloses a time period governing the overall time during which re-broadcasting occurs and Bachir discloses a time period governing the amount of time between individual re-broadcasts. (Ans. 31) The Examiner then finds that Reumerman and Bachir can be combined to obtain Appellants’ invention as the time limit disclosed by Reumerman is consistent with the defer time disclosed by Bachir (Ans. 31-32). Appellants contend Reumerman discloses a vehicle automatically re- broadcasts a message until a specified time to live expires, i.e., during a time to live (App. Br. 14, 17; Reumerman, ¶¶ [0079], [0082]). In contrast, Appellants’ claimed invention re-broadcasts a message only to a new set of vehicles after a predetermined period of time (Ans. 14). Appellants also contend Bachir discloses a protocol wherein a decision to re-broadcast or delete a message is based on the relevancy of the message and not the expiration of a second predetermined period of time (App. Br. 15). That is, Bachir re-broadcasts messages if they are relevant and after the expiration of a defer time. Appellants then assert the conditions associated with Reumerman only stop the re-broadcast, they do not initiate the re-broadcast, and thus, there is no reason to combine these two references as they teach the opposite of each other. (App. Br. 17). We agree with Appellants that the operating schemes of Reumerman and Bachir are not combinable, as the Appeal 2011-007575 Application 11/839,700 5 time limit disclosed by Reumerman is not consistent with the defer time disclosed by Bachir (App. Br. 14-17; Reply Br. 1-3). DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-20 is reversed. REVERSED Pgc/peb