Ex Parte Qiu et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 28, 2016

12829914 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 28, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/829,914 07/02/2010 85643 7590 03/30/2016 Guntin & Gust, PLC - BB DOCKET 117 S. Cook St. No. 358 Barrington, IL 60010 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR MeideQiu 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. 37794-US-PAT_l03-0062 9471 EXAMINER YEUNG, MATTHEW ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2694 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/30/2016 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): docketing@ggip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) U-NITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MEIDE QIU and HUANYU CHEN Appeal2014-002882 Application 12/829,914 Technology Center 2600 Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, JEFFREY A. STEPHENS, and CARLL. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges. STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants 1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's final rejection of claims 1-15 and 17-22, which are all the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b ). We reverse. 1 The real party in interest is identified as Research in Motion Limited. (App. Br. 2.) Appeal2014-002882 Application 12/829,914 Claimed Subject Matter The claimed invention generally relates to a mobile wireless communications device including a keyboard assembly for reducing Specific Absorption Rate ("SAR"). (Title; Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative: 1. A mobile wireless communications device comprising: a portable housing; wireless transceiver circuitry carried by said portable housing; an antenna carried by said portable housing and coupled to said wireless transceiver circuitry; a light source carried by said portable housing; and a keyboard assembly carried by said portable housing and compnsmg a light guide coupled to said light source and having a plurality of input key receiving openings therein, a mask carried by said light guide and having a plurality of input key receiving openings therein aligned with the plurality of input key receiving openings of said light guide, and a plurality of input keys within respective input key receiving openings of said light guide and said mask, said mask comprising an electrically conductive layer positioned relative to said antenna so as to reduce a Specific Absorption Rate value of the mobile wireless communications device. Rejections Claims 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 17, 18, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Camp, Jr. (US 6,411,826 Bl; June 25, 2 Appeal2014-002882 Application 12/829,914 2002) ("Camp") and Jokinen et al. (US 2003/0201983 Al; Oct. 30, 2003) ("Jokinen"). (Final Act. 6-19.) Claims 3, 11, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Camp, Jokinen, and Paulick (US 5,710,987; Jan. 20, 1998). (Final Act. 19-21.) Claims 4, 5, 12, 13, 20, and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Camp, Jokinen, and Mato, Jr. (US 6,204,839 Bl; Mar. 20, 2001). (Final Act. 21-23.) Claims 8 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Camp, Jokinen, and Skillman et al. (US 2006/0202967 Al; Sept. 14, 2006). (Final Act. 24--25.) ISSUES2 The dispositive issue raised by Appellants' contentions is whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Camp and Jokinen teaches said mask comprising an electrically conductive layer positioned relative to said antenna so as to reduce a Specific Absorption Rate value of the mobile wireless communications device ("the SAR limitation"), as recited in claim 1, and similarly recited in independent claims 10 and 17. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants' arguments the Examiner erred (App. Br. 8-18; Reply Br. 2---6). The 2 Because this issue is dispositive, we do not address additional issues raised by Appellants' arguments. 3 Appeal2014-002882 Application 12/829,914 Examiner relies on the following passages from Camp as teaching the SAR limitation: As shown in FIG. 3B, the patch antenna 39B can include a conductive antenna layer 63 on a dielectric layer 65, along with conductive ground layer 64 and coaxial cable 58 attached to layers 63 and 64, and the patch antenna can be mounted along the inside surface of the front face 43 of the radiotelephone body adjacent the keypad 29 including keys 29a. (Camp 6:5-11 (bold numerals omitted); Final Act. 8.) In addition, the patch antenna in the radiotelephone can provide circular polarization matching that of GPS signals transmitted by GPS satellites. The patch antenna of the present invention can thus provide improved performance over GPS antennas previously used in radiotelephones including GPS functions. (Camp 7:1---6; Final Act. 8.) The Examiner states that these passages are interpreted "as 'reducing specific absorption rate value of the mobile wireless communication device' as it allows the device to more accurately communicate with a wireless transmitting device." (Final Act. 8-9.) The Examiner clarifies in the Response to Arguments in the Final Action that "specific absorption rate of an antenna is interpreted as the ability of an antenna to receive a signal" (Final Act. 5 (emphasis added)), and in the Answer interprets "specific absorption rate value" as "the ability of an antenna to receive a signal" (Ans. 28). The Examiner considers this the plain and ordinary meaning of the claim phrase, and cites In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997), to support that such an interpretation "may be rebutted only if the specification clearly sets forth [Appellants'] desired definition." (Ans. 29.) As a result, the Examiner does not apply the "specialized technical meaning" argued by Appellants. (Ans. 29.) 4 Appeal2014-002882 Application 12/829,914 We agree with Appellants the Examiner interprets the claimed Specific Absorption Rate value unreasonably in light of the Specification. (App. Br. 12-13.) The relevant portion of Morris, relied on by the Examiner, provides: [T]he PTO applies to the verbiage of the proposed claims the broadest reasonable meaning of the words in their ordinary usage as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, taking into account whatever enlightenment by way of definitions or otherwise that may be afforded by the written description contained in the applicant's specification. Morris, 127 F.3d at 1054 (emphasis added). The plain and ordinary meaning of a term may be a specialized technical meaning if that is how it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. As noted by Appellants (App. Br. 12), the Specification here explains that "for a relatively small phone having an internal antenna, the antenna may be in relatively close proximity to the user's face or cheek, which may make complying with applicable SAR and/or hearing aid compatibility requirements potentially difficult for manufacturers" (Spec. i-f 4). This passage indicates that the "Specific Absorption Rate value," which is either used as an acronym or capitalized in the Specification and in the claim, is a measured value relating to a user's exposure to radio waves from the antenna and the regulations governing a device's permissible exposure level. This understanding is reinforced elsewhere in the Specification, including paragraphs 29 ("reduce the SAR value in an area of increased exposure"), 31 ("may reduce radiation power exposure by 0.5 to 1.0 dB and, thus, reduce SAR for antenna operation in the Personal Communication Service (PCS) frequency band"), and 32. Paragraph 32 in particular provides: 5 Appeal2014-002882 Application 12/829,914 As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, SAR values are increasingly an issue for mobile wireless communications devices. For example, regulatory authorities may set maximum SAR values for a mobile wireless communications device. Accordingly, it may be desirable to reduce a SAR value for a mobile wireless communications device. Accordingly, although the Specification does not provide a full and complete definition of a SAR value, and we agree with the Examiner that Appellants have not shown the Wikipedia definition provided in the Appeal Brief is the appropriate definition (see Ans. 28), interpreting the Specific Absorption Rate value recited in claim 1 as "the ability of an antenna to receive a signal" (Ans. 28) is unreasonably broad in light of the Specification. The Examiner's rejection relies on an unreasonably broad interpretation of the claimed Specific Absorption Rate value, and there is no finding that the cited references teach said mask comprising an electrically conductive layer positioned relative to said antenna so as to reduce a Specific Absorption Rate value of the mobile wireless communications device, as recited in claim 1, under a proper interpretation of the claimed SAR value. In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Camp and Jokinen. For the same reasons, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 10 and 17, which recite similar limitations, and we do not sustain the rejections of dependent claims 2-9, 11-15, and 18-22.3 3 Although additional references are relied on in rejecting dependent claims 3-5, 8, 11-13, 15, and 19-21, the Examiner has not shown these additional 6 Appeal2014-002882 Application 12/829,914 DECISION We reverse the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-15 and 17-22. REVERSED references remedy the deficiencies noted with respect to the rejection of the independent claims. 7