Ex Parte Himmelsbach et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 26, 2016

12578438 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 26, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/578,438 10/13/2009 131475 7590 04/27/2016 Dilworth IP - SAP 2 Corporate Drive, Suite 206 Trumbull, CT 06611 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Gerhard Himmelsbach 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. 247-093US 6357 EXAMINER WANG, JIN CHENG ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2618 MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE 04/27/2016 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 GERHARD HIMMELSBACH and CLAUS KOLLMANNSPERGER Appeal2014-007429 Application 12/578,438 Technology Center 2600 Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, SCOTT B. HOW ARD, and JOHN D. HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judges. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-16, which constitute all of the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b ). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify SAP AG as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3. SAP SE represented in an assignment document filed on August 26, 2014 that on July 7, 2014 SAP AG changed its name to SAP SE. Appeal2014-007429 Application 12/578,438 THE INVENTION The claimed invention is directed to a system and method for graphical representation of product structures showing the changed states of items that are part of the product structures. Spec. i-fi-f l, 2, and 5. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method comprising: extracting, in a computer, all change states for a first data set corresponding to a first product structure representing the physical structure of a product during one or more effectivity periods, the product structure having a plurality of items each item representing a portion of the physical structure; concatenating, in the computer, change states on a per item basis; and displaying, on an electronic display, the concatenated change states for each item relative to a parametric constraint effective for the data set. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Williams US 2003/0014287 Al Jan. 16,2003 Coburn US 2004/0128120 Al July 1, 2004 Perry US 2005/0265083 Al Dec. 1, 2005 Rothenburg US 2007/0219656 Al Sept. 20, 2007 THE REJECTION Claims 1-16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Williams in view of Coburn, Perry, and Rothenburg. Final Act. 21--48. 2 Appeal2014-007429 Application 12/578,438 ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellants' arguments that the Examiner erred. In reaching this decision, we consider all evidence presented and all arguments made by Appellants. We agree with Appellants' arguments regarding claims 1-16. Appellants argue none of the cited references are in the same general field of the claimed invention and none of the cited references teach or suggest the concatenating step of claim 1. App. Br. 11-14. Appellants further argue that "change states" as recited in claim 1 was specifically defined in the Specification and the Examiner's findings are based on an improper construction of the claim limitation. Id.; Reply Br. 4--5. During prosecution, claims must be given their broadest reasonable interpretation while reading claim language in light of the specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). An applicant may, however, act as his or her own lexicographer and specifically define a claim term in the specification. In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480 (Fed. Cir. 1994). In this case, the Appellants acted as their own lexicographer and provided a specific definition of change states: "As used herein, 'change states' are the smallest, i.e., most granular, atom of history" of product development changes. Spec. i-f 2. Because the Examiner's findings are based on an improper claim construction (see Ans. 3, 5-6, and 7; Final Act. 34 (citing Rothenburg Fig. 9)), based on the record before us, we are constrained to reverse the Examiner's rejection of claim 1, along with the rejections of claims 7 and 12, which are argued on the same grounds, and the rejections of dependent claims 2-6, 8-11, and 13-16. 3 Appeal2014-007429 Application 12/578,438 DECISION For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-16. REVERSED 4