Ex Parte GranaDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 19, 201411266876 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 19, 2014) Copy Citation 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. 11/266,876 11/04/2005 Clare Grana 66033-5001/01 8622 7590 09/22/2014 Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20004 EXAMINER PHAM, HUNG Q ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2159 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/22/2014 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 CLARE GRANA ____________ Appeal 2012-005787 Application 11/266,876 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and JASON J. CHUNG, Administrative Patent Judges. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner finally rejecting claims 1–3, all the claims pending in the application. Claims 4–10 are cancelled. We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. STATEMENT OF THE CASE The present invention relates generally to procuring, analyzing, and communicating dietary information. See Abstract. Appeal 2012-005787 Application 11/266,876 2 Claim 1 is illustrative: Claim 1: A method of communicating dietary information between a user and a combination of databases comprising: storing dietary information on a combination of databases including a menu/recipe database, a nutritional database, and a medication database; searching the combination of databases to identify specific dietary information meeting user criteria, wherein said searching comprises a personal database interacting with said menu/recipe database and at least one of said nutritional database and said medication database; manipulating the identified specific dietary information to provide a table of output dietary information; and transmitting the output dietary information from said table to the user. Appellant appeals the following rejections: Claims 1–3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Petot (Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 98, No. 9, September 1998, Pages 1009-1014) and Kocher (US 6,652,455 B1, November 25, 2003). Claim Groupings Based on Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief, we will decide the appeal on the basis of claim 1, as set forth below. See 37 C.F.R. 41.37(c)(1)(vii). ANALYSIS Issue: Did the Examiner err in finding that the combined teachings of Petot and Kocher teaches and/or suggest a personal database interacting with Appeal 2012-005787 Application 11/266,876 3 said menu/recipe database and at least one of said nutritional database and said medication database? Appellant contends that “it is apparent that a sample input screen of CAMP system and a second nutrient database does not meet the recitation of ‘a personal database interacting with said menu/recipe database and at least one of said nutritional database and said medication database” (App. Br. 9- 10). The Examiner finds that in Petot’s Fig. 1, the “Personal Preferences, Case Base of Menus[,] and Database of Foods are considered as a personal database, a menu/recipe database[,] and a nutritional database[,] respectively” (Ans. 9). We agree with the Examiner. We refer to, rely on, and adopt the Examiner's findings and conclusions set forth in the Answer. Our discussions here will be limited to the following points of emphasis. Here, the Examiner directs our attention to Petot’s Case-based Menu Planner (CAMP) system where “[m]enus were obtained from reputable sources (15-17) and modified as needed to ensure that they satisfy the RDIs, Dietary Guidelines for Americans (18)” (see Petot 1011). In other words, Petot’s system receives user’s preferences and search a combination of databases, i.e., database of menus and a nutrient database, to adapt a menu to meet personal needs (see Fig. 1). We see no error in the Examiner’s equating the claimed personal database (see Spec. 12:11–15) with Petot’s stored user preferences, the claimed menu/recipe database with Petot’s base of 84 menus, and the claimed nutritional database with Petot’s USDA Nutrient database (see Ans. 5–6). We find the aforementioned Examiner’s Appeal 2012-005787 Application 11/266,876 4 interpretation to be consistent with Appellant’s descriptions in the Specification. On this record, we find Appellant has failed to present substantive arguments and supporting evidence persuasive of Examiner error regarding the aforementioned disputed limitation. See In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“we hold that the Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the prior art.”). Here, Appellant merely contends that the Examiner’s finding “does not meet the recitation of ‘a personal database interacting with said menu/recipe database and at least one of said nutritional database and said medication database” (see App. Br. 9-10), without explaining why the claimed recitation is distinguishable from the Examiner’s findings. Mere attorney’s arguments and conclusory statements that are unsupported by factual evidence are entitled to little probative value. In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997); see also In re De Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705 (Fed. Cir. 1984); 37 C.F.R. § 1.111(b); and Ex parte Belinne, No. 2009-004693, slip op. at 7-8 (BPAI Aug. 10, 2009) (informative), available at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/bpai/its/fd09004693.pdf. For these reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding that the combined teachings of Petot and Kocher discloses the invention as recited in independent claim 1, and in claims 2 and 3, which were not argued separately. Therefore, the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1–3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Appeal 2012-005787 Application 11/266,876 5 DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED sl Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation