Ex Parte Riley

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 9, 2017

13051627 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
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
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/051,627 03/18/2011 Sean Riley 050704/402107 4893
99434 7590 03/13/2017
McKesson Corporation and Alston & Bird LLP
c/o Alston & Bird LLP
Bank of America Plaza
101 South Tryon St., Suite 4000
Charlotte, NC 28280-4000
EXAMINER
TOMASZEWSKI, MICHAEL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3686
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/13/2017 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):
u sptomail @ alston .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SEAN RILEY
Appeal 2015-004568
Application 13/051,6271
Technology Center 3600
Before HUBERT C. LORIN, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and
BRADLEY B. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judges.
LORIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final
rejection of claims 1—21. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
SUMMARY OF DECISION
We AFFIRM.
1 The Appellant identifies McKesson Medical-Surgical Minnesota Supply
Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1.
Appeal 2015-004568
Application 13/051,627
THE INVENTION
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on
1. A method comprising:
[1] receiving, via processing circuitry, clinical data
indicative of incidence of a health condition common to a
plurality of patients within a patient population, the patient
population corresponding to a plurality of different facilities
associated with an organization wherein a subset of the
different facilities are within the organization and at least one of
the different facilities is external to the organization;
[2] receiving, via the processing circuitry, organizational
usage data indicative of supply usage for each of the plurality of
facilities associated with the organization, the supply usage
being related to the supplies that have been used for the
treatment of the health condition common to the plurality of
patients; and
[3] providing, via the processing circuitry, for generation of
a report fusing the clinical data and the organizational usage
data for the health condition common to the plurality of patients
within the patient population corresponding to the plurality of
facilities associated with the organization.
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
appeal.
THE REJECTIONS
DeBusk et al. US 5,991,728 Nov. 23, 1999
(hereinafter “DeBusk”)
McCartney US 2003/0065534 Al Apr. 3, 2003
Konoske et al.
(hereinafter “Konoske”)
US 7,707,042 B1 Apr. 27, 2010
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Appeal 2015-004568
Application 13/051,627
The following rejection is before us for review:
Claims 1—21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over DeBusk, Konoske, and McCartney.
ISSUES
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1—21 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over DeBusk, Konoske, and McCartney?
ANALYSIS
The Appellant argued independent claims 1, 8, and 15 as a group (see
App. Br. 5—11). We select claim 1 as the representative claim for this group.
Therefore, these claims stand or fall with independent claims 1.
The Appellant argues that “DeBusk and McCartney merely disclose
recording information about the consumption of supplies/resources
(retrospectively)” (App. Br. 8) and “merely disclose recording information
about the actual consumption of supplies/resources” (Reply Br. 4).
The Appellant also argues that, “the combination of the references cannot be
used as disclosing the fusing of the clinical data and the organizational usage
data because the references do not satisfy the predicate, which is first
receiving these types of data” (App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 10). The Appellant
also argues that DeBusk does not disclose generation of a report as required
by limitation [3] (App. Br. 9—11). The Appellant also contends, generally,
that “the Examiner has improperly applied the Broadest Reasonable
Interpretation Standard to DeBusk, Konoske, and McCartney, instead of
independent Claims 1, 8, and 15” (Reply Br. 3).
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Appeal 2015-004568
Application 13/051,627
We are not persuaded of error in the rejection.
The Examiner made comprehensive findings for each limitation of
claim 1 (see Final Act. 2—5; see also Ans. 2—5). The Examiner finds the
“clinical data indicative of incidence of a health condition” of claim 1
(limitation [1]) disclosed at, inter alia, Figure 7 of DeBusk (Final Act. 2).
The Examiner finds the “organizational usage data indicative of supply
usage” of claim 1 (limitation [2]) disclosed at, inter alia, column 8, lines 11—
14 of DeBusk (id. at 3). Regarding limitation [3], the Examiner finds this
limitation disclosed at, inter alia, Figures 1—32 and column 17, lines 35—42
and 55—59 of DeBusk (id.; Ans. 4). According to the Examiner, DeBusk
discloses “creating reports that allow for tracking of resource consumption
during a procedure, such as an excision of an ear lesion (i.e., patient health
condition)” (Ans. 4).
Regarding the claim 1 limitation of “clinical data indicative of
incidence of a health condition,” we find that the Examiner reasonably and
properly found this limitation in the medical procedures disclosed in
DeBusk, such as the ear lesion excision as shown in Figure 7. We also find
that the Examiner properly found the claimed “organizational usage data” in
the medical supply usage disclosed in DeBusk. The Appellant’s arguments
regarding the claimed “usage data” are not commensurate with the scope of
the claim. Nothing in claim 1 excludes usage data indicative of retrospective
or actual consumption. On the contrary, claim 1 recites “the supply usage
being related to the supplies that have been used” (App. Br. 14, Claims
Appendix) (emphasis added). Regarding the “report” of claim 1, we agree
with the Examiner that this is disclosed in DeBusk. At column 17, lines 55—
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Appeal 2015-004568
Application 13/051,627
59, DeBusk discloses “analyzing the data input during the logging process,
by generating a variety of reports” for display in reports screen 286. Reports
screen 286, shown in Figure 13 of DeBusk, discloses various selection
criteria for generating a component usage report, the criteria including
medical procedures, i.e., procedures for treatment of health conditions. The
Appellant has not persuasively explained how the scope of the report
required by claim 1 does not encompass the component usage reports for
medical procedures disclosed in DeBusk.
For the foregoing reasons, the rejection of independent claim 1 is
sustained. We also sustain the rejection of independent claims 8 and 15,
which fall with claim 1. The Appellant does not make separate arguments
directed to dependent claims 2—7, 9-14, and 16—21 (see App. Br. 11—12).
Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 2—7, 9—14, and 16—21 for the
same reasons as claim 1.
CONCLUSIONS
The rejection of claims 1—21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is sustained.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1—21 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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