Ex Parte Prakah-Asante et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 30, 2018

14529931 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 30, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/529,931 10/31/2014
28395 7590 12/04/2018
BROOKS KUSHMAN P.C./FG1L
1000 TOWN CENTER
22NDFLOOR
SOUTHFIELD, MI 48075-1238
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Kwaku 0. Prakah-Asante
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.
83471936 4983
EXAMINER
HOANG, HIEU T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2452
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/04/2018 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):
docketing@brookskushman.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte KWAKU 0. PRAKAH-ASANTE,
HSIN-HSIANG YANG, and FLING TSENG 1
Appeal2018-004876
Application 14/529,931
Technology Center 2400
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JASON V. MORGAN, and
MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judges.
MORGAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final
Rejection of claims 1, 2, and 5-20. Appeal Br. 1. Claims 3 and 4 are
canceled. Claims App'x. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1 Appellant is the applicant and real party in interest, Ford Global
Technologies, LLC. Appeal Br. 2.
Appeal2018-004876
Application 14/529,931
Invention
The Specification discloses "a processor configured to determine a
vehicle destination [and] access a driver-owned media delivery account to
determine context-relevant information relating to the destination."
Abstract.
Representative Claim (key limitations emphasized)
1. A system comprising:
a processor configured to:
receive vehicle destination input;
responsive to the destination input, access a driver-owned
media delivery account and use the input vehicle destination to
search media delivery account content to determine context-
relevant information about the input vehicle destination;
prepare a driver alert based on the context-relevant information;
and
deliver the driver alert.
Rejections
The Examiner rejects claims 1, 2, 5-9, 11-13, and 15-20 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Wilkerson (US 2012/0010805
Al; published Jan. 12, 2012) and Healey et al. (US 2014/0095069 Al;
published Apr. 3, 2014) ("Healey"). Final Act. 3-7.
The Examiner rejects claims 10 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Wilkerson, Healey, and Bliss et al. (US 2010/
0106801 Al; published Apr. 29, 2010) ("Bliss"). Final Act. 7-8.
EXAMINER'S DETERMINATIONS AND
APPELLANT'S CONTENTIONS
Wilkerson discloses obtaining or identifying unmanaged information
such as unscheduled events and activities, and modifying a navigation route
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Application 14/529,931
based on a learned user behavior source and navigation settings. Wilkerson
,r,r 36, 56. Healey discloses route generation based on users tasks or errands,
including providing suggestions to perform tasks associated with locations
along a route. Healey ,r,r 28, 55.
In rejecting claim 1 as obvious, the Examiner determines Wilkerson's
use of unmanaged information, learned user behavior, and navigation
settings in modifying a navigation route teaches or suggests responsive to
the destination input, accessing a driver-owned media delivery account and
search media delivery account content to determine context-relevant
information. Final Act. 4 ( citing Wilkerson ,r,r 36, 53, 56, and 84--90). The
Examiner does not rely on Wilkerson, however, to "disclose the processor
configured to use the vehicle destination to search media delivery account
content to determine context-relevant information about the vehicle
destination." Final Act. 4 ( emphases added). Instead, the Examiner relies
on Healey's use of tasks associated with locations along a route to teach or
suggest using the input vehicle destination in the media delivery account
content search and the determined context-relevant information being about
the input vehicle destination. Id. at 4--5 (citing Healey Abstract, ,r,r 28, 55).
Appellant contends the Examiner erred because in Healey an alert
about local tasks is triggered responsive to "a determination that the vehicle
is proximate to a task completion location ... not responsive to a destination
or a destination input." Appeal Br. 5 ( citing Healey ,r 45). Appellant argues
"the tasks of Heal[ e ]y have no relationship to a destination or even a present
location, other than that they can be completed at a proximate location to the
present location." Appeal Br. 5; see also id. at 6 (citing Healey ,r 55). In
particular, Appellant argues interpreting the recitations related to the input
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Application 14/529,931
vehicle destination as being taught or suggested by Healey' s tasks along a
route is "unreasonable and tenuous, as the tasks along a route [are] only
'related' to the destination in the vague sense that the locations for
performing those tasks incidentally happened to be passed while traveling to
the destination." Reply Br. 2. Appellant contends the disputed recitations
were specifically changed "so that the context-relevant information is ...
'about' the destination ... to avoid an overbroad reading of 'related to."'
Appeal Br. 5; see also Reply Br. 2.
ANALYSIS
Appellant argues Healey's tasks "have no relationship to a
destination" (Appeal Br. 5), but rather are "associated with locations that
happen to be near a route" (id. at 6 (emphasis added)). Appellant contends
that the use of the word "about" is intended to distinguish the claimed
context-relevant information from such locations, which Appellant argues
have "absolutely nothing to do with the destination except that [they] fall[]
on a completely arbitrary (because of a random start point) path to the
destination." Reply Br. 3.
Appellant unpersuasively fails to distinguish information about a
destination from information about locations near the destination. See, e.g.,
Appeal Br. 5; Reply Br. 2-3. Moreover, the Specification provides little to
describe "destination information 201" or the "relevant data" retrieved in
steps 315,319, and 323. See Spec. ,r,r 37--40, 42, 44, 49, 50, 53, 56, Figs. 2,
3. Rather, the Specification broadly discloses that"[ o ]nee a destination has
been selected, the process can access one or more social media accounts,"
emails, and text messages to "retrieve any relevant data, using the
destination and any context data." Id. ,r 49 (emphases added). Given the
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Application 14/529,931
lack of a clear definition in the Specification for context-relevant
information about the input vehicle destination, we agree with the Examiner
that Appellant's arguments directed to arguing the word "about" seeking to
distinguish the claimed invention from the prior art in a manner that the
previous "relating to" failed to do are unpersuasive. See Ans. 4.
Furthermore, an artisan of ordinary skill would have recognized that a
number of locations proximate to the destination can provide-because of
their proximity-information about the destination itself regardless of the
route taken to the destination. Appellant provides an example of a task-
"pick up lunch ... at a deli"- that Appellant argues cannot be read as
"information 'about' the destination (e.g., work) because the deli has nothing
to do with the destination, work." Reply Br. 2. Information about a deli in
proximity to the work destination, however, would be information about the
work destination itself-i.e., that there is a nearby deli at which the task of
picking up lunch could be performed.
Proximity to a destination of locations where certain tasks can be
performed is taught or suggested by Healey' s prompting a user "to select
one or more tasks associated with locations within a predetermined range of
the anticipated route." Healey ,r 55 ( emphasis added). Any route to a
destination, regardless the start of the route, includes the destination itself.
Thus, Healey teaches or suggests identifying locations within the
predetermined range of the destination (i.e., near the destination), and thus
about the destination itself.
For these reasons, we agree with the Examiner that the combination of
Wilkerson and Healey renders obvious "responsive to the destination input,
access a driver-owned media delivery account and use the input vehicle
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destination to search media delivery account content to determine context-
relevant information about the input vehicle destination," as recited in claim
I. See Final Act. 4--5.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of
claim 1, and claims 2 and 5-20, which Appellant argues are similarly
patentable. See Appeal Br. 6.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1, 2, and 5-20.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 4I.50(f).
AFFIRMED
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