Ex Parte Meggison et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 26, 201913523549 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 26, 2019) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/523,549 06/14/2012 93379 7590 Setter Roche LLP 14694 Orchard Parkway Building A, Suite 200 Westminster, CO 80023 02/28/2019 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Richard Wayne Meggison SR. 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. 648.0107 6097 EXAMINER CHEN,ZHAN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2194 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/28/2019 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): sarah@setterroche.com pair_avaya@firsttofile.com uspto@setterroche.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte RICHARD WAYNE MEGGISON, SR. and PAUL A. GWALTNEY Appeal2017-003434 Application 13/523,549 1 Technology Center 2100 Before CATHERINE SHIANG, NABEEL U. KHAN, and SCOTT E. BAIN, Administrative Patent Judges. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm. 1 Appellants identify Avaya Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2. Appeal2017-003434 Application 13/523,549 BACKGROUND THE INVENTION Appellants describe the invention as follows: Embodiments disclosed herein provide systems, methods, and software for dynamically managing applications. In particular, automatic application removal or uninstallation from a computing device can occur upon satisfaction of a particular condition or conditions. In one example, a method implemented on a computing device calls for receiving a condition, the occurrence of which indicates when an application installed on the computing device should be uninstalled. An element in an operating system of the computing device is monitored to determine whether the condition is satisfied and, if the condition is satisfied, uninstall the application from the computing device. Abstract. Exemplary independent claim 1 is reproduced below. 1. A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon for operating a computing device, wherein the instructions, when executed by the computing device, direct the computing device to: receive a condition included with an application at a time that the application is installed by an entity onto the computing device, the occurrence of which indicates when the application installed on the computing device should be automatically uninstalled; place the application into a designated area of a graphical user interface for an operating system of the computing device, wherein the condition applies to all applications placed in the designated area; after receipt of the condition, monitor an element in the operating system of the computing device to determine whether the condition is satisfied; and 2 Appeal2017-003434 Application 13/523,549 upon determining that the condition is satisfied, uninstall the application from the computing device without intervention by a user of the computing device. REFERENCES AND REJECTIONS 1. Claims 1, 3, 5, 9, 11, 13, 15, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) over Yamada (US 2008/0155531 Al, June 26, 2008) and Sadowsky (US 6,981,252 Bl, Dec. 27, 2005), Barfield (US 2004/0015956 Al, Jan. 22, 2004), and Chaudhri (US 2006/0156250 Al, July 13, 2006). Final Act. 2-14. 2. Claims 2 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) over Yamada, Sadowsky, Barfield, Chaudhri, and Deschenes (US 2010/0077475 Al, Mar. 25, 2010). Final Act. 14--16. 3. Claims 4 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) over Yamada, Sadowsky, Barfield, Chaudhri, and Tripp (US 2008/0127173 Al, May 29, 2008). Final Act. 16-18. 4. Claims 6 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) over Yamada, Sadowsky, Barfield, Chaudhri, and Lee (US 2012/0174007 Al, July 5, 2012). Final Act. 18-20. 5. Claims 7 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) over Yamada, Sadowsky, Barfield, Chaudhri, and Timmins (US 2004/0058710 Al, Mar. 25, 2004). Final Act. 20-22. 6. Claims 8 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Yamada, Sadowsky, Barfield, Chaudhri, and Takagi (US 2007/0101345 Al, May 3, 2007). Final Act. 22-24. 3 Appeal2017-003434 Application 13/523,549 7. Claims 10 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) over Yamada, Sadowsky, Barfield, Chaudhri, and Koyama (US 2005/0034119 Al, Feb. 10, 2005). Final Act. 24--26. DISCUSSION The Examiner relies on the combination of Yamada, Sadowsky, Barfield, and Chaudhri to teach the limitations of claim 1 and, in particular, relies on Chaudhri as teaching the limitation of "plac[ing] the application into a designated area of a graphical user interface for an operating system of the computing device, wherein the condition applies to all applications placed in the designated area." Final Act. 5---6 ( emphasis removed) ( citing Chaudhri ,r 103). Appellants argue, Barfield teaches away from Chaudhri and one of ordinary skill would not have been motivated to incorporate Chaudhri into the teachings of Barfield. App. Br. 6. For example, Appellants argue "Chaudhri merely teaches a manner in which a user can manually instruct a system to remove an item of software from their machine." App. Br. 6 ( arguing that dragging of a widget to the trash icon is a manual instruction for the widget to be removed) ( emphasis removed). In contrast, Appellants argue, "the entire purpose of Barfield is to prevent a user from having to manually track and uninstall software applications." App. Br. 6 ( citing Barfield ,r,r 7-9) ( emphasis removed). In other words, according to Appellants, Chaudhri teaches manual uninstallation of software while Barfield seeks to avoid the disadvantages of manual uninstallation of software. Thus, Appellants argue, the two references would not have been combined by one of ordinary skill in the art. 4 Appeal2017-003434 Application 13/523,549 We are unpersuaded by Appellants' arguments. The Examiner articulates a reason with rational underpinning for combining Chaudhri with Yamada, Sadowsky, and Barfield stemming from Chaudhri itself and has thus provided sufficient reasoning for the rejection. Final Act. 6 ( citing Chaudhri ,r 21) ( explaining that "[ t ]he modification would be obvious because one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to have uninstallations based on position of the software on the graphical user interface for easy access."). We disagree with Appellants' characterization that the act of dragging a widget to a trash icon is a manual act of uninstalling software akin to the kind of manual uninstallation that Barfield seeks to avoid. When discussing the disadvantages of manual uninstallation of trial software, Barfield focuses on the user having to manage and save potential libraries or files that may be overwritten by the trial software and to manually have to restore the libraries and files when the software is uninstalled. See Barfield ,r 7. None of these disadvantages appear in the cited portions of Chaudhri's discussion regarding dragging a widget to a trash icon. Thus, the dragging act in Chaudhri cannot be characterized as the manual act of installation or uninstallation of software. Instead, we agree with the Examiner that the act of dragging a widget to the trash icon merely indicates to the system to uninstall the widget. See Ans. 16. The dragging act leads to the automatic uninstallation of the widget rather than manual uninstallation. As the aforementioned contentions were the basis of Appellants' arguments for all appealed claims, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-20. 5 Appeal2017-003434 Application 13/523,549 DECISION The Examiner's rejection of claims 1-20 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended. See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation