Ex Parte Kamiyama et al

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardJun 7, 2019

14589095 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jun. 7, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 14/589,095 01/05/2015 Y oshiroh Kamiyama 52021 7590 06/11/2019 Cuenot, Forsythe & Kim, LLC 20283 State Road 7 Ste. 300 Boca Raton, FL 33498 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. JP920090015US3_8132-0053 7656 EXAMINER PRINGLE-PARKER, JASON A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2618 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/11/2019 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): ibmptomail@iplawpro.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte YOSHIROH KAMIYAMA and KOTARO SHIMA Appeal2018-002509 Application 14/589,095 1 Technology Center 2600 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and SCOTT B. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judges. HOW ARD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 16-31 and 36-39, which constitute all of the claims pending in this application. Claims 1-15 and 32-35 have been cancelled. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 International Business Machines Corporation ("Appellant") is the Applicant under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.46 and is identified as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1. Appeal2018-002509 Application 14/589,095 THE INVENTION The disclosed and claimed invention is directed "to an editing apparatus that edits a display screen to display a plurality of components thereon, and an editing method and a computer program product." Spec. ,i 2. Claim 16, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 16. A computer hardware system, comprising: at least one hardware processor configured to initiate and/or perform: outputting, to a display screen, a plurality of concurrently-displayed software components; outputting, to the display screen, two nodes respectively associated with two of the plurality of software components; and outputting, to the display screen and responsive to a selection of the two nodes, a link connecting the two nodes, wherein a first of the two nodes is graphically linked to the software component to which the first node is associated, and the first node displays a selected property of the software component to which the first node is associated. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Pike Corda et al. Lavallee us 5,579,469 us 5,758,122 US 6,421,821 Bl Nov. 26, 1996 May 26, 1998 July 16, 2002 Buntarou Shizuki et al., Visual Patterns+ Multi-Focus Fisheye View: An Automatic Scalable Visualization Technique of Data-Flow Visual Program Execution, IEEE Proceedings of VL '98 (Sept. 1998) (hereinafter "Shizuki") 2 Appeal2018-002509 Application 14/589,095 REJECTIONS2 Claims 16, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28, 29, and 36-39 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. Â§102(b) as being anticipated by Lavallee.3 Claims 18, 19, 26, and 27 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103 (a) as being unpatentable over Lavallee and Corda. Claims 22 and 30 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lavallee and Pike. Claims 23 and 31 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lavallee and Shizuki. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellant's arguments that the Examiner erred. In reaching this decision, we have considered all evidence presented and all arguments made by Appellant. We are persuaded by Appellant's arguments regarding the pending claims Appellant argues the Examiner erred in finding Lavellee discloses "outputting, to the display screen and responsive to a selection of the two nodes, a link connecting the two nodes" as recited in claim 16. See App. Br. 11-12; Reply Br. 4-6. Specifically, Appellant argues that 2 In addition to the rejections recited below, claims 6-31 were rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting. Final Act. 5- 14. Appellant filed a terminal disclaimer on January 2, 2018. Because the terminal disclaimer was accepted by the office, the double patenting rejection is moot. 3 Although claim 31 was listed in the heading, there was no substantive analysis explaining how the claim was anticipated by Lavallee. Compare Final Act. 14 (heading), with id. at 14-20 (setting forth basis for the rejections). Accordingly, the identification of claim 31 in the heading is a typographical error. 3 Appeal2018-002509 Application 14/589,095 the lines previously relied upon by Examiner in Figure 6 to teach the claimed 'a link connecting the two nodes' does not connect the 'data display on top of the object' to other data displayed on top of the object. At best, the lines connect objects (e.g., object 90 to object 92; object 92 to object 94; object 92 to object 88) - not the data on top of the objects. App. Br. 12. Appellant further argues the Examiner improperly construes "a link connecting the two nodes" as recited in claim 16: [T]he Examiner's analysis is not consistent with the phrase "a link connecting the two nodes." By asserting that all that "is required by the claim is merely some form of link," the Examiner is impermissibly transformed the claim language from "a link connecting the two nodes" into "a link between the two nodes." The term "between" is broader than "connecting" and would encompass the Examiner's claim construction. However, Appellants did not use the term "between." Reply Br. 5. The Examiner finds Lavallee discloses the disputed limitation. See Final Act. 15; Ans. 30-31. Specifically, the Examiner further finds that "the block itself is considered the component, and the data displayed on top of the object is a node" (Final Act. 5) and that Lavallee's Figure 6 discloses "individual blocks indicating objects have lines between them and arrows indicating messaging between the blocks" (Final Act. 15). The Examiner further finds the limitation is broad enough to encompass a link that shows a link between the nodes even if it is not touching the nodes: [The] Examiner fully agrees that the link is at the center of the 3D object, which is part of the component. However, the claims require merely "a link connecting the two nodes". Per Lavallee, each programming object has a line/arrow connecting it to another programming object. The claims do not specifically require a line touching a first node and a second node, nor any other specific visual representation. What is required by the claim is merely some form of link. When a user 4 Appeal2018-002509 Application 14/589,095 looks at Lavallee, the lines/arrows provide a clear visual link between the nodes, even if the line/arrow does not touch the nodes, but rather slightly behind the node portion. Ans. 30. We are persuaded by Appellant's arguments that the Examiner has not identified sufficient evidence or provided sufficient explanation as to how Lavallee discloses "outputting, to the display screen and responsive to a selection of the two nodes, a link connecting the two nodes," as recited in claim 16. Although Lavallee discloses lines connecting the boxes-which the Examiner maps to software components-claim 16 requires "a link connecting the two nodes." See Ans. 30 (finding a link between programming objects). We disagree with the Examiner that the claim is broad enough to encompass "[t]he line/arrow ... placed at any portion of the component .... " Id. at 31. Instead, as recited in claim 16, the links must connect the nodes. Therefore, the Examiner's does not present sufficient evidence and argument to show that Lavallee discloses the disputed element. See In re Caveney, 761 F.2d 671, 674 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (Examiner's burden of proving non-patentability is by a preponderance of the evidence); see also In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967) ("The Patent Office has the initial duty of supplying the factual basis for its rejection. It may not, because it may doubt that the invention is patentable, resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in its factual basis.").4 4 Appellant raises additional issues in the Appeal Brief. Because we are persuaded the Examiner erred with respect to this dispositive issue, we do not reach the additional issues. See Beloit Corp. v. Valmet Oy, 742 F.2d 1421, 1423 (Fed. Cir. 1984) (explaining that an administrative agency may render a decision based on "a single dispositive issue"). 5 Appeal2018-002509 Application 14/589,095 Accordingly, we are constrained on this record to reverse the Examiner's rejection of claim 16, along with the rejection of claim 24, which recites a limitation commensurate in scope to the disputed limitation discussed above, and dependent claims 17, 20, 21, 25, 28, 29, and 36-39. Moreover, because the Examiner has not shown that Corda, Pike, or Shizuki cures the foregoing deficiency regarding the rejection of the independent claims, we will not sustain the obviousness rejection of dependent claims 18, 19, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, and 31 for similar reasons. DECISION For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner's decisions rejecting claims 16-31 and 36-39. REVERSED 6