Ex Parte Haugh et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 29, 2016

12612439 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 29, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 12/612,439 11104/2009 Julianne Frances Haugh 45442 7590 05/03/2016 IBM CORPORATION (RVW) C/OROBERTV. WILDER, ATTORNEY AT LAW 10212 Cassandra Drive Austin, TX 78717 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. A US920090 l l 9US 1 4407 EXAMINER XIAO,DI ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2141 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/03/2016 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): bobwilder@netzero.net rwilder6@austin.rr.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JULIANNE FRANCES HAUGH and CHRISTOPHERJ. TAN Appeal2014-008273 Application 12/612,439 Technology Center 2100 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal2014-008273 Application 12/612,439 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134 from a rejection of claims 1- 3, 5-11, and 13-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b ). We affirm. The invention relates to an improved slider bar system for input selection in a graphical user interface (Spec. 1 :9-12, 2:25-3:22). Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for processing a selection of a displayed indicium, said displayed indicium being one of a plurality of displayed indicia being presented on a display screen, said method comprising: determining an order for said plurality of displayed indicia; differentiating each of said displayed indicia from others of said plurality of displayed indicia in sequence, said differentiating being effective for a predetermined time period for each of said plurality of displayed indicia; and enabling a selection of one of said plurality of displayed indicia in response to only a single movement of a displayed pointer during said predetermined time period when a selected one of said plurality of displayed indicia is being differentiated from others of said plurality of displayed indicia, said selecting being accomplished by moving said displayed pointer, while said displayed pointer is displayed anywhere on said display screen regardless of pointer position on said display screen when a selected one of said plurality of displayed indicia is being differentiated from others of said plurality of displayed indicia. 2 Appeal2014-008273 Application 12/612,439 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Kimura et al. Luk et al. US 2008/0253737 Al US 2010/0211908 Al Oct. 16, 2008 Aug. 19, 2010 GLAZEBROOK, ADVANCED JQUERY TABBED Box TECHNIQUES, http://www.cssnewbie.com/advanced-jquery-tabbed-box-techniques/ (last visited month day, year) (hereinafter "Glazebrook") Johnson, "Microsoft Windows Vista On Demand, Second Edition," Mar. 2008 (hereinafter "Johnson") TAB GROUPS: FIREFOX TAB GROUPING EXTENSION, http://web.archive. org/web/20070217040933/http:/ lparanoid-androids.com/tab groups/ (last visited month day, year) (hereinafter "Tab Groups") REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1-3, 5-11, and 13-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C Â§ 112, first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. Claims 1-3, 5, 9-11, 13, and 17-19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Glazebrook, Luk, and Kimura. Claims 8 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Glazebrook, Luk, Kimura, and Tab Groups. Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C Â§103(a) as being unpatentable over Glazebrook, Luk, Kimura, Tab Groups, and Johnson. 3 Appeal2014-008273 Application 12/612,439 ANALYSIS The Written Description Rejection The Examiner finds the limitation "said selecting being accomplished by moving said displayed pointer, while said displayed pointer is displayed anywhere on said display screen regardless of pointer position on said display screen," recited in claim 1, and similar limitations in independent claims 9 and 1 7, are not supported by the originally filed Specification (Final Act. 2-3). Appellants contend [T]here is nothing in the [S]pecification that requires that the pointer be in a certain field or position on the display screen in order to enable a user to make a selection of a highlighted indicium. Since there is no requirement for the pointer to be in any predetermined field when a pointer movement is made, it is clear that the pointer may be anywhere on the display screen when the pointer movement is initiated to implement a selection process as discloses in the [S]pecification. (App. Br. 11-12). We disagree with Appellants. The test for meeting the written description requirement "is whether the disclosure of the application relied upon reasonably conveys to those skilled in the art that the inventor had possession of the claimed subject matter as of the filing date." Ariad Pharms., Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Co., 598 F.3d 1336, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2010). We are not persuaded by Appellants' argument that the absence in the Specification of a pointer location for making a selection of a highlighted indicium meets this test (see App. Br. 11-12). Rather, the Specification's alleged silence on a pointer location demonstrates a lack of possession of a feature defining where the pointer can be in order to select a highlighted indicium, not possession of a feature permitting the pointer to be anywhere. Moreover, Appellants' statement that 4 Appeal2014-008273 Application 12/612,439 the Specification does not require a particular pointer location (see App. Br. 11-12) is undercut by Appellants' Figures 3 to 5, which appear to show a pointer being located on the highlighted tab being selected. This tends to support the opposite of what Appellants claim, that the pointer must be in a specific location to select a highlighted indicium. We are also not persuaded by Appellants' Reply Brief argument that the Examiner is unduly requiring Appellants to describe in the Specification all the places the pointer is not required to be in making a selection (see Reply Br. 4 ). Rather, Appellants must merely show possession of what is claimed, not what is not claimed. We have reviewed Appellants' Specification and have not found written description support for the claim limitation "said selecting being accomplished by moving said displayed pointer, while said displayed pointer is displayed anywhere on said display screen regardless of pointer position on said display screen." We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-3, 5-11, and 13-20 for failing to satisfy the written description requirement. The Obviousness Rejections The Examiner finds the combination of Glazebrook, Luk, and Kimura discloses all the limitations of independent claim 1, including that Kimura discloses "said selecting being accomplished by moving said displayed pointer, while said displayed pointer is displayed anywhere on said display 5 Appeal2014-008273 Application 12/612,439 screen regardless of pointer position on said display screen" (Final Act. 4--5). Appellants contend Kimura uses a cursor movement to slow down a moving object so that the object can be more easily selected by a user .... There is no selection being accomplished when an action such as a cursor movement is made during a specific time during which one of a plurality of objects is visually distinguished from other of the displayed objects as clearly recited in claim 1. (App. Br. 15). We agree with Appellants. Glazebrook discloses a system for automatically rotating through tabbed pages so that a user does not need to click each tab to reveal the content therein (Glazebrook 1-2). However, to stop the rotation, Glazebrook requires the mouse to be moved over one of the tabs (Glazebrook 4). For showing it would have been obvious to stop Glazebrook's tab rotation merely by moving the mouse anywhere on the screen, the Examiner cites to Kimura (Final Act. 5). Kimura discloses an interactive video player where a user can select a displayed object during video playback to achieve a defined action, such as accessing a Web page related to the object (see Kimura i-fi-1 40, 44--46). In order to aid a user in selecting an object that may be displayed in the video for only a short period of time, the playback will slow or pause upon movement of a cursor for selecting the object (Kimura i-f l 0). More specifically, Kimura discloses: [P]redicting the occurrence of the selection operation of the area object when a move operation of the cursor 51 by the pointing device 11 ... has occurred. In this regard, regardless of the position of the cursor 51, when a move operation of the cursor 51 occurs, it is predicted that the selection operation of the area object will occur. 6 Appeal2014-008273 Application 12/612,439 (Kimura il 52). If such prediction occurs, "the playback control section 7 changes the playback speed of the title to a predetermined speed that is slower than usual" (Kimura i-f 53). We find Kimura fails to suggest selecting a highlighted tab in Glazebrook's automatically rotating tabs simply by moving the cursor when it is displayed anywhere on the screen. While Kimura does disclose performing an action based on moving a cursor positioned anywhere, this action is to control the video playback speed in order to make an object's selection easier (see Kimura i-fi-152-53). Kimura does not disclose performing an actual selection based solely on the movement of the cursor when the cursor is positioned anywhere. One of ordinary skill in the art would have understood that actual selection of the object in Kimura would require completing a cursor movement to the desired object. We thus find the Examiner has failed to show the references disclose "said selecting being accomplished by moving said displayed pointer, while said displayed pointer is displayed anywhere on said display screen regardless of pointer position on said display screen," as recited in claim 1. We are, therefore, constrained by the record to find the Examiner erred in rejecting as obvious independent claim 1, independent claims 9 and 17 which recite commensurate limitations, and dependent claims 2, 3, 5-8, 10, 11, 13-16, and 18-20 for similar reasons. CONCLUSIONS Under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 112, first paragraph, the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-3, 5-11, and 13-20. 7 Appeal2014-008273 Application 12/612,439 Under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a), the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-3, 5-11, and 13-20. DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-3, 5-11, and 13-20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 112, first paragraph, is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 8