Ex Parte RileyDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 9, 201713051627 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 2017) Copy Citation 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 2 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). 3 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— 4 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 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation