Ex Parte RUSSELL et al

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardApr 5, 2019

14478633 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 5, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/478,633 09/05/2014 23117 7590 04/09/2019 NIXON & V ANDERHYE, PC 901 NORTH GLEBE ROAD, 11 TH FLOOR ARLINGTON, VA 22203 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Jeffrey W. RUSSELL 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. SJP-6011-3 1360 EXAMINER DANG, PHILIP ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2488 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/09/2019 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): PTOMAIL@nixonvan.com pair_nixon@firsttofile.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED ST ATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ExparteJEFFREYW. RUSSELL and GREGORY A. VOSE 1 Appeal2018-005760 Application 14/478,633 Technology Center 2400 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, ERIC S. FRAHM, and MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1 through 8 and 11 through 22, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. Claims 9 and 10 have been cancelled. We have jurisdiction under35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We reverse. 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Vose Technical Systems Inc. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2018-005760 Application 14/478,633 INVENTION The invention is directed to a common surveillance system which allows multiple users to share and communicate surveillance data with each other as well as with one or more agencies. Abstract. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and is reproduced below. A system for generating a common operating platform of a surveillance system for display by remote client devices, the system comprising: a processing system having at least processing circuitry, the processing system configured to: generate, for display on a display device, a client-specific status board having a customized surveillance platform including multiple display views from multiple surveillance sources, each of the multiple display views being associated with a time and place, generate, for display on the display device, the common operating platform comprising a map having multiple display views from multiple surveillance sources that are provided by the client devices, and communicate, in response to an operation input, one or more display views in real-time between the client-specific status board and the common operating platform using a communications bridge that enables bidirectional communication between the status board and the common operating platform. App. Br. 21 (Claims Appendix). 2 Appeal 2018-005760 Application 14/478,633 REJECTIONS AT ISSUE2 The Examiner has rejected claims 1 through 4, 7, 14 through 1 7 and 20 through 22 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lipton (US 8,564,661 B2, issued October 22, 2013) and Fulgham (US 8,386,597 B2, issued February 26, 2013). Final Act. 3-22. The Examiner has rejected claims 5, 8, and 18 under35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lipton, Fulgham and Mate (US 2013/0176438 Al, published July 11, 2013). Final Act. 22-26. The Examiner has rejected claims 6 and 19 under35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lipton, Fulgham and Kundu (US 2013/0004090 Al, published January 3, 2013). Final Act. 26-29. The Examiner has rejected claims 11 through 13 under 3 5 U.S. C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lipton, Gopalakrishnan (US 7,873,911 B2, issued January 18, 2011) and Barker (US 2012/0313781 Al, published December 13, 2012). Final Act. 29-35. ANALYSIS We have reviewed Appellants' arguments in the Briefs, the Examiner's rejection, and the Examiner's response to Appellants' arguments. Appellants' arguments have persuaded us of error in the Examiner's obviousness rejections. 2 Throughout this Decision, we refer to the Appeal Brief ("App. Br.") filed January 22, 2018, the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.") filed May 16, 2018, the Final Office Action ("Final Act.") mailed February 13, 2017, and the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.")mailed March 16, 2018. 3 Appeal 2018-005760 Application 14/478,633 With respect to independent claims 1 and 14, Appellants argue that the combination of Lipton and Fulgham does not teach a client specific status board, displaying multiple views from multiple sources and a common operating platform having a map showing images related to the multiple views and communicating views between the status board and the common operating platform using a bridge that enables bidirectional communication. App. Br. 13-16; Reply Br. 2-7. The Examiner in the Final Rejection of independent claims 1 and 14, relies upon Lipton to disclose the claimed "generate, for display on a display device, a client-specific status board," "generate, for display on the display device, the common operating platform" and communicating display views between the two displays using a bidirectional communication bridge. Final Act. 3---6, 12-14. Specifically, the Examiner cites to the discussion of a user interface in Lipton, column 17 line 12 as meeting the claimed client status board, and the discussion of a display having a map as the common operating platform, citing Lipton column 27, lines 32-35. Final Act. 4--5, 14. In the Answer the Examiner identifies that Lipton teaches that video surveillance data is communicated between a user def med status board ( the alert console, item 2211 in Fig. 22) and the common operating platform (a computer system) via a common bridge (the Internet). Answer 40-44. (citing various columns of Lipton). The Examiner fmds bidirectional communication to be enabled by a network (e.g., the Internet or other network or direct connection between I/0 [input/output] devices) between the status board ( user interface having human-readable graphical displays) and the common operating platform ( a video surveillance system, i.e., a computer system). Final Act. 5---6. 4 Appeal 2018-005760 Application 14/478,633 The Examiner rejects independent claim 11 under a different combination of references. However, the Examiner relies upon the same portions in Lipton, discussed above with respect to claim 1, to teach the disputed limitations directed to a client specific status board, a common operating platform and the bidirectional communication between the two. Final Act. 29-31. We have reviewed the teachings of Lipton cited by the Examiner and disagree with the Examiner's fmdings that they teach or make obvious the disputed limitations of independent claims 1, 11 and 14. Claim 1 recites generating for display, a client specific status board and a common operating platform comprising a map. Claim 1 recites that each of these displays ( status board and common operating platform) have views from surveillance sources and that views are communicated between the status board and the common operating platform bi-directionally via a bridge. Independent claims 11 and 14 recite similar limitations. The Examiner has not clearly identified, nor is it readily apparent to us where Lipton teaches bi-directional communication between two separate displays that meet the claimed status board and the common operating platform. The Examiner fmds Lipton to teach the status board to communicate through the network to another computer system. Ans. 40-43. The Examiner further fmds Lipton to teach bidirectional communication of devices on the network. Final Act. 6. However, the Examiner has not identified any teaching that Lipton's system is configured to communicate one or more display views between the status board and any particular display corresponding to the common operating platform. Lipton does teach a display including a map in column 27, lines 32-35, as identified by the 5 Appeal 2018-005760 Application 14/478,633 Examiner, but there is no discussion of a view being bi-directionally communicated between an interface of such display and another display. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 1, 11, and 14. The Examiner's rejections of dependent claims 2 through 8, 12, 13 and 15 through 22 similarly rely upon Lipton to teach the disputed limitations of claims 1, 11, and 14 and the Examiner has not shown that the additional references relied upon teaches the disputed limitations. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejections of these claims for the same reasons as claims 1, 11, and 14. DECISION We reverse the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1 through 8 and 11 through22 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a). REVERSED 6