Ex Parte Brown et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 22, 2017

12963498 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 22, 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.
12/963,498 12/08/2010 Anthony Brown 054054/396334 2956
133839 7590 06/26/2017
'Zebra Teehnnlnaies; Pnmnratinn
EXAMINER
(Legacy)
3 Overlook Point
ISLAM, HASAN Z
Lincolnshire, IL 60069 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2845
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/26/2017 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):
ip_legal @ zebra, com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ANTHONY BROWN, BORIS Y. TSIRLINE,
MARTIN SCHWAN, KARL TORCHALSKI, TOM ZWIER,
and DANIEL F. DONATO
Appeal 2016-005757
Application 12/963,4981
Technology Center 2800
Before DONNA M. PRAISS, JULIA HEANEY, and
MICHAEL G. McMANUS, Administrative Patent Judges.
PRAISS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL2
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s Final
Rejection of claims 35—39 and 41—44 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We have
jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
Appellants’ invention is said to be directed to “a mobile printing and
encoding system” and, more specifically, “a printer and associated RF
1 The real party in interest is identified as ZIH Corp. App. Br. 2.
2 In this Opinion, we reference the Specification filed Dec. 8, 2010
(“Spec.”), the Final Office Action dated Feb. 5, 2015 (“Final Act.”), the
Appeal Brief filed Sept. 16, 2015 (“App. Br.”), the Examiner’s Answer
dated Mar. 10, 2016, and the Reply Brief filed May 10, 2016 (“Reply Br.”).
Appeal 2016-005757
Application 12/963,498
(“radio frequency”) encoder that is structured and adapted for positioning
aboard a mobile unit such as a forklift.” Spec. 12.
Independent claim 35 is illustrative (key limitations in dispute
italicized):
35. An antenna assembly comprising:
an antenna conductor;
an input port; and
a terminating load, wherein the antenna assembly is configured
to:
transmit electromagnetic energy to read information from,
write information to, or both read and write information to one
or more radio frequency transponders in one or more media units;
be detachably coupled to an encoder electronics assembly,
and
be removable from an antenna housing without the
encoder electronics assembly being mechanically detached from
the antenna housing.
App. Br. 14 (Claims App’x).
Claim 37 depends from claim 35 and requires that the antenna
assembly comprise “an antenna casing structured to concentrate the
electromagnetic energy on a first media unit and prevent
electromagnetic coupling with other media units.” Id. Claim 38
depends from claim 37 and further requires that the antenna casing
comprise “a first casing surface comprised of an electromagnetic
energy blocking material; and an interrogation window in the first
casing surface configured to allow the electromagnetic energy to pass
therethrough.” Id.
The Examiner maintains and Appellants appeal the following
rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a):
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Appeal 2016-005757
Application 12/963,498
1. Claims 35—37, 42, and 44 over Lindsay;3
2. Claims 38 and 39 over Lindsay in view of Whitehouse;4
3. Claim 41 over Lindsay in view of Tavormina;5 and
4. Claim 43 over Lindsay in view of Cathey.6
Ans. 3; Final Act. 5—8; App. Br. 2.
ISSUE7
Did the Examiner reversibly err in finding that Lindsay discloses an
antenna assembly configured to be detachably coupled to an encoder
electronics assembly? We decide this issue in the affirmative.
FINDINGS OF FACT AND ANALYSES
After thoroughly reviewing the arguments of both the Appellants and
the Examiner, we find the preponderance of evidence supports the
Appellants’ position that Lindsay fails to disclose an antenna assembly that
is detachably coupled to an encoder electronics assembly as required by sole
independent claim 35. Because claim 35 is the sole independent claim and
the Examiner’s additional cited prior art and rejections do not cure the
deficiencies of Lindsay, we need only address the rejection of claim 35.
3 US 7,098,794 B2, iss. Aug. 29, 2006.
4US 2003/0112187 Al, pub. June 19, 2003.
5 US 2006/0132312 Al, pub. June 22, 2006.
6 US 6,806,812 Bl, iss. Oct. 19, 2004.
7 Appellants do not separately argue claims 36, 39, and 41^44. App. Br. 6-
12. In accordance with 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv), and based upon the lack
of arguments directed to the subsidiary rejections, claims 36 and 41—44 will
stand or fall together with independent claim 35 from which they depend.
Claim 39 will stand or fall with claim 38 from which it depends.
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Appeal 2016-005757
Application 12/963,498
The Examiner finds that Figure 4 of Lindsay discloses an antenna
assembly comprising an antenna conductor (item 404), an input port (item
406), an antenna assembly configured to transmit electromagnetic energy to
read or write information to one or more radio frequency transponders (item
402) that is detachably coupled to an encoder electronics assembly (items
408, 410), and removable from an antenna housing (the bottle) without the
encoder electronic assembly being mechanically detached from the antenna
housing. Final Act. 5.
Appellants argue that the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims
because:
The Examiner cites the second chip and the second antenna of
Lindsay against the “encoder electronics assembly” of claim 35.
This is an error. The second chip and the second antenna of
Lindsay do not individually or collectively encode anything. Put
another way, none of the second antenna, the second chip, or any
combination thereof encodes anything or supports an encoding
component (e.g., by providing data to be encoded to an encoding
component). Nevertheless, the Examiner asserts that the second
chip and the second antenna of Lindsay are an encoder
electronics assembly. This position in untenable. An assembly
that does not encode anything or support an encoding process
cannot be reasonably interpreted as an encoder electronics
assembly.
App. Br. 9.
In response, the Examiner finds that Lindsay’s chip 408 and antenna
410 are commensurate with the recited encoder electronics assembly. Ans.
9. The Examiner further responds that:
Lindsay teaches "The code in the second RFID 408 chip is
detachable whenever the bottle is scanned. In one embodiment,
if the bottle has not been tampered with, the two RFID chips 402,
408 are scanned, yielding a first code and a second code which
are known to belong together. If only one code is found instead
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Appeal 2016-005757
Application 12/963,498
of two, the bottle is rejected. Rapid scanning of many bottles at
once allows a computer to compare the list of first RFID chips
402 from each bottle with the list of second RFID chips 408 from
each bottle, to determine if some bottles do not have the second
RFID chip 408 that is paired with the first chip 402, allowing
automatic detection of the presence of a tampered bottle in the
scanned group." (col. 9, line 60 to col. 10, line 5)
Put another way, a code encoded within chip 408 is
transmitted by antenna 410 via electromagnetic energy when the
chip 408 is scanned, hence the chip and antenna being
commensurate with “an encoder electronics assembly.”
Id.
In the Reply Brief, Appellants contend that “transmitting a code
in response to an interrogation signal from a scanner (as described in
Lindsay) is not the same as encoding a transponder.” Reply Br. 5.
Appellants quote paragraph 23 of the Specification as defining the
term “encoder” to mean “a device adapted to transmit electromagnetic
energy into an interrogation zone and thereby read and/or write
information to one or more RFID transponders located within the
interrogation zone.” Id. According to Appellants, chip 408 and
antenna 410 of Lindsay “do not read and/or write information to one
or more RFID transponders and, thus, cannot be reasonably
interpreted as an encoder. Rather than encoding a transponder, the
chip 408 and the antenna 410 of Lindsay react to a signal by
transmitting a code.” Id. (emphasis omitted).
We agree with Appellants that the Examiner has not adequately
explained how chip 408 of Lindsay discloses the encoder assembly
required by claim 35. Below is Figure 4 of Lindsay:
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Appeal 2016-005757
Application 12/963,498
FIG. 4
First anterma (on cap! 404
Conductive
leads 406 ^
Circuit with
transistor 412
First RFID —
chip 402
Second RFID
chip 408
Second i
antenna 410 ■
/
Figure 4 is a diagram of a container that has two RFID chips for
tamper detection. Lindsay 3:44-46. Chip 408, together with antenna 410
identified by the Examiner as an encoder electronics assembly that is
detachably coupled to antenna 404 (Final Act. 5), has a code encoded within
it such that, when chip 408 together with chip 402 are scanned, it allows a
computer to determine if the container has been tampered with (Ans. 9;
Lindsay 9:60—10:5). Chip 402 becomes deactivated when the conductive
pathway between it and antenna 404 is broken (Final Act. 6; Lindsay 9:34—
38). Although chips 408 and 402 are electronic components coupled to
antenna assemblies, they merely store data that is read by a scanner rather
than providing data to be encoded to an encoding component as argued by
Appellants (App. Br. 9). The Examiner’s finding that the code encoded
within chip 408 is transmitted by antenna 410 via electromagnetic energy
when the chip is scanned and therefore makes chip 408 and antenna 410 an
encoder electronics assembly (Ans. 9) does not adequately explain why a
code that is read is necessarily an encoder as required by claim 35.
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Appeal 2016-005757
Application 12/963,498
Specifically, the Examiner’s finding does not adequately explain how chip
408 and antenna 410 read and/or write electronic information to
transponders, which is what paragraph 23 of the Specification discloses as
the function of the encoder. See Spec. 23; Reply Br. 5.
Accordingly, on this record, we reverse the Examiner’s 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections of claims 35—39 and 41^44.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections of claims
35—39 and 41 44. The Examiner’s decision is REVERSED.
REVERSED
7