Ex Parte Ewe

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 22, 2019

15081674 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 22, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
15/081,674 03/25/2016 Thomas Ewe
27189 7590 01/24/2019
PROCOPIO, CORY, HARGREAVES & SAVITCH LLP
525 B STREET
SUITE 2200
SAN DIEGO, CA 92101
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
l l 6099-003CT1 7177
EXAMINER
NDIA YE, CHEIKH T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2447
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/24/2019 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):
docketing@procopio.com
PTONotifications@procopio.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte THOMAS EWE
Appeal2018-005454
Application 15/081,67 4
Technology Center 2400
Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, ROBERT E. NAPPI, and
KAL YANK. DESHPANDE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL 1
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 2-7 and 9-16. Appellant has cancelled claims 1, 8, and 16. App. Br.
12-14. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM.
1 Appellant indicates the real party in interest is SYNACTIVE, INC.
App. Br. 2.
Appeal2018-005454
Application 15/081,674
Illustrative Claim
Illustrative claims 2 and 6 under appeal read as follows ( emphasis,
formatting, and bracketed material added):
2. A computer-implemented method for providing an event-trapping
mechanism in a dynamic execution environment, the method
comprising, by at least one hardware processor:
[A.] creating one or more execution blocks from a function
stored in a script, wherein each of the one or more
execution blocks is associated with a sequence of screen
events of a user interface;
[B.] storing the one or more execution blocks as handlers; and
[C.] executing at least one handler independently from the one
or more handlers, when an associated sequence of screen
events for the handler is detected in network traffic;
[D.] wherein the network traffic is traffic between a client and a
server such that the dynamic execution environment is an
intermediary apparatus between the client and the server
configured to monitor the network traffic.
6. The method of claim 2, wherein the script contains goto statements
for moving between the one or more handlers.
Liang et al.
Neil et al.
References2
US 2008/0072239 Al
US 2011/0113364 Al
March 20, 2008
May 12, 2011
2 All citations herein to these references are by reference to the first named
inventor only.
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Appeal2018-005454
Application 15/081,674
Rejection3
The Examiner rejected claims 2-7 and 9-16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over the combination of Neil and Liang. Final Act. 2---6.
For this rejection, Appellant presents arguments for claims 2, 10, and
16 together. App. Br. 5-9. We select claim 2 as representative. Also,
Appellant presents arguments for claims 6 and 14 together. App. Br. 9. We
select claim 6 as representative. Further, Appellant argues claims 3-5, 7-9,
and 11-15 by reference to the arguments for respective independent claims.
App. Br. 9. Appellant does not present separate arguments for claims 3-5,
7, and 9-16. Except for our ultimate decision, we do not address claims
3-5, 7, and 9-16 further herein.
Issues on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 2 and 6 as being obvious?
ANALYSIS 4
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellant's
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant. We
concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the
following points.
3 All citations herein to the "Final Action" are to a Final Action mailed on
March 23, 2017.
4 All Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) citations herein are to
MPEP Rev. 08.2017, January 2018.
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Appeal2018-005454
Application 15/081,674
A. Claim 2
Appellant raises the following arguments in contending that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
Neil is directed specifically to solving the problem of navigation
on a display of a client device by utilizing event handlers to trap
inputs made to the client device so that focus control can be
provided onto the display based on particular elements on the
screen of the device . . . . Appellant notes that as described in
Neil, such implementations are local to the client device as
described in paragraph [0025] of Neil.
Appellant notes that the Examiner's proposed
modification changes the principle of operation of Neil, from
handlers configured to trap input made locally to a client device
for the purposes of providing focus and navigation on a display
of a client device, to being implemented in an intermediary
apparatus between the client and the server and configured to trap
network traffic between the client and server.
App. Br. 6-7 (emphasis added).
Appellant notes that the Examiner's proposed
modification ... renders the primary reference inoperable for
its intended purpose for providing focus and navigation for a
display of a local client device.
App. Br. 7 (emphasis added).
Appellant notes that per the Examiner's proposed modification,
detecting such events from network traffic between the client and
the server would not be as efficient for capturing user interface
events as conducting the event handling on local inputs to the
client device as unmodified in Neil.
Even if, in arguendo, the Examiner wishes to modify Neil
to have the event handler remain on the client device while
providing the decision making based on detection of the event to
an intermediate device, Appellant notes such an implementation
would still suffer from lag due to the communications between
the intermediate device and the client device, thereby being less
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Appeal2018-005454
Application 15/081,674
efficient in capturing user events as described in Neil. As the
purpose of Neil is directed to providing focus and navigation
control locally on a client device, Appellant notes that there is
no implementation involving an intermediate device that would
accomplish the capture of user events for the purposes
described in Neil as efficiently as having the implementations
all be local to the client device as described in Neil.
App. Br. 9 (emphasis added).
Essentially, Appellant argues that a person of ordinary skill would
only extend the local traffic processing of Neil to a client-server network
traffic by eliminating the beneficial local traffic processing of Neil. We are
not persuaded by Appellant's argument. We do not agree with Appellant
that an artisan would needlessly move local traffic to the client-server
network. In KSR, the Court explained that "[a] person of ordinary skill is
also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton." 550 U.S. 398,421
(2007). We agree with the Examiner that Liang teaches monitoring network
traffic to efficiently capture user interface events. Final Act. 3--4. We
further agree with the Examiner that it would have been obvious to apply the
local traffic processing of Neil to such network traffic. "[I]f a technique has
been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art
would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way,
using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or
her skill." KSR, 550 U.S. at 417.
B. Claim 6
Appellant raises the following argument in contending that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
Appellant notes that there is no disclosure in Neil regarding goto
statements for moving between the one or more handlers. The
Examiner cites paragraphs [0133] to [0136] of Neil as allegedly
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Appeal2018-005454
Application 15/081,674
disclosing the claim feature, however, the paragraphs that were
cited fail to disclose or suggest the aforementioned claim feature.
Further, both the cited references of Neil and Liang are silent
with respect to the aforementioned claim feature.
App. Br. 9.
We are not persuaded by Appellant's argument. An artisan would
understand that a "goto statement" is "the high-level equivalent of a branch
or jump instruction" (Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary 1991 ), and Neil
recites that "the focus jumps." Neil [ 13 6].
CONCLUSIONS
( 1) The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 2-7 and 9-16 as
being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
(2) Claims 2-7 and 9-16 are not patentable.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejection of claims 2-7 and 9-16 is affirmed.
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 )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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