Ex Parte Ross et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 23, 2012

10983793 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 23, 2012)

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. 10/983,793 11/08/2004 Steven J. Ross GP-305350-OST-ALS 2380 74829 7590 11/26/2012 Julia Church Dierker Dierker & Associates, P.C. 3331 W. Big Beaver Road Suite 109 Troy, MI 48084-2813 EXAMINER NGUYEN, THUY-VI THI ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3689 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/26/2012 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte STEVEN J. ROSS, NATHAN D. AMPUNAN, JEFFREY G. RAVAS, and JEFFREY M. STEFAN ____________________ Appeal 2011-004899 Application 10/983,793 Technology Center 3600 ____________________ Before: ANTON W. FETTING, MICHAEL W. KIM, and NINA L. MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judges. KIM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-004899 Application 10/983,793 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1- 201. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. The claims are directed to providing mobile vehicle sales recommendations (Spec. 1:7-8). Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for providing mobile vehicle sales recommendations, the method comprising: receiving, from a telematics unit over a wireless network system, vehicle usage data for at least one mobile vehicle at a call center, the vehicle usage data including information related to an operation of the at least one mobile vehicle by a user; creating, via one of i) a communications service manager associated with a call center, or ii) a third party data center, at least one vehicle usage profile for the user based on the received vehicle usage data; receiving, via the wireless network system, a vehicle profile request at the call center from a sales center; and sending, via a wired connection, the vehicle usage profile based on the received vehicle profile request from the call center to the sales center, the vehicle usage profile being used, at the sales center, for selecting an other vehicle for the user. The Examiner has rejected claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), as being unpatentable over Henderson (US 6,868,386 B1, iss. May 15, 2000), in view of Applicant Admitted Prior Art (AAPA) and further in view of Hecklinger (US 7,113,853 B2, iss. Sep. 26, 2006). 1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed July 1, 2010) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed November 15, 2010), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed September 14, 2010). Appeal 2011-004899 Application 10/983,793 3 ANALYSIS We are not persuaded the Examiner erred in asserting that a combination of Henderson, the AAPA, and Hecklinger renders obvious claims 1-20 (App. Br. 7-11; Reply Br. 5-7). Pages 10-16 of the Examiner’s Answer are fully responsive to Appellants’ arguments set forth on pages 7- 11 of the Appeal Brief. Accordingly, we adopt them as our own, and the balance of our analysis will focus on arguments set forth in the Reply Brief. Appellants assert that “since Henderson provides no rationale or guidance for utilizing the data representative of operator and vehicle driving characteristics for providing vehicle sales recommendations, one skilled in the art would not refer to Henderson and come up with an idea of generating a profile of vehicle operational data that may be used at a sales center to ultimately select another vehicle for a user” (Reply Br. 2-3). However, the AAPA is cited for disclosing the rationale and guidance for utilizing the data representative of operator and vehicle driving characteristics for providing vehicle sales recommendations (Ans. 6, 11-12, 15). See In re Merck & Co. Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (the argument that a single reference alone does not disclose the recited claimed steps is not persuasive because nonobviousness cannot be established by attacking the references individually when the rejection is predicated upon a combination of prior art disclosures); In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981) (“one cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references individually where, as here, the rejections are based on combinations of references”). Appellants further assert that the information used by the vehicle sales representative in the AAPA is limited to that which is either obtained (1) through an interview with the customer or (2) from the vehicle itself when it Appeal 2011-004899 Application 10/983,793 4 is turned or traded in (Spec. 1:12-20), and is thus not from the recited vehicle usage profile (Reply Br. 3). However, the Examiner supplements the limited information used by the vehicle sales representative in the AAPA with the raw/calculated vehicle data elements and vehicle data reports of Henderson (col. 12, ll. 45-51; col. 13, ll. 5-20; Ans. 4-5, 10-11, 15-16). 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 under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv) . AFFIRMED JRG