Ex Parte SauermannDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 29, 201310850663 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 29, 2013) 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. 10/850,663 05/21/2004 Volker Sauermann 11884/413201 9041 23838 7590 04/30/2013 KENYON & KENYON LLP 1500 K STREET N.W. SUITE 700 WASHINGTON, DC 20005 EXAMINER NUNEZ, JORDANY ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2171 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/30/2013 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 VOLKER SAUERMANN ____________ Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before JENNIFER S. BISK, JAMES B. ARPIN, and TRENTON A. WARD, Administrative Patent Judges. WARD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the rejection of claims 1-30. The real party in interest is SAP Aktiengesellschaft of Walldorf, Germany. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part and enter new grounds of rejection. Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Applied Prior Art Gasperina U.S. 5,491,781 Feb. 13, 1996 Cohn U.S. 5,712,995 Jan. 27, 1998 Johnson U.S. 5,721,847 Feb. 24, 1998 Stead U.S. 6,690,401 B1 Feb. 10, 2004 The Rejections on Appeal Claims 1-18, 20, 22, 25, 26, 27, and 301 were finally rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stead and Johnson. Claims 19 and 21 were finally rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Stead. Claims 23 and 24 were finally rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Johnson. Claim 28 was finally rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stead, Johnson, and Cohn. Claim 29 was finally rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stead, Johnson, and Gasperina.2 1 We note that the Examiner’s heading for this rejection in the Examiner’s Answer fails to mention claims 26, 27, and 30, but the text of the rejection addresses claims 26, 27, and 30. See Ans. 5, 11-12. Accordingly, we treat this as a harmless typographical error. 2 We note that the Examiner’s heading for this rejection states that claim 28 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stead, Johnson, and Gasperina, but the quoted text is from claim 29 and the rejection addresses the limitations of claim 29. See Ans. 13. Accordingly, we treat this as a harmless typographical error. Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 3 The Invention Appellant discloses, referring to Appellant’s Figure 1b below, a table displayed in a graphical user interface having multiple columns and rows. Spec. 6:4-22. The table in Figure 1b below provides a general horizontal table-data control 105 for scrolling between the entire table and a scroll-bar 100a assigned to an individual column for scrolling within that particular column. Appellant’s Figure 1b is reproduced below: Figure 1b depicts a scroll-bar 100a for an individual column. Claim 1 is illustrative with certain limitations emphasized: 1. A computer system for controlling a display of data, comprising: Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 4 a computer monitor configured to display: a table arranged to show a structural relationship of data, the table including a plurality of displayed columns and at least one row that intersect; and a column-data control selectively associated with, and configured to control navigation of, only data that is within a particular one of the plurality of columns, and not configured to control navigation of data of any other of the plurality of columns. DISCUSSION A. The Rejection of Claims 1-5, 7, 25-27, and 30 as Obvious over Stead and Johnson The Examiner determined that Stead discloses all elements of claim 1, except that Stead fails to specifically show a column-data control not configured to control navigation of any other of the plurality of columns. Ans. 6.3 The Examiner cited Johnson as teaching this feature in concluding that the claim would have been obvious. Ans. 6. Appellant disagrees and argues that both Stead and Johnson fail to teach a column-data control selectively associated with, and configured to control navigation of, only data within a particular one of the plurality of columns, and not configured to control navigation of data of any other of the plurality of columns. App. Br. 12-13. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments and sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. The spreadsheet in Johnson’s Figure 3A below, shows a list box 160 including a scrollbar on the right side. Johnson’s Figure 3A is reproduced below: 3 Our decision refers to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (App. Br.), filed Dec. 22, 2009, and Reply Brief (Reply. Br.), filed May, 24, 2010, and the Examiner’s Answer (Ans.), mailed Mar. 23, 2010,. Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 5 Johnson’s Figure 3A depicts list box 160 having a scrollbar on the right side. Appellant argues that the scroll bar in Figure 3A of Johnson, shown above, is not associated with and does not control the navigation of data within, any column of the illustrated table, but is instead only associated with data of a list box which is overlaid on top of table. App. Br. 13. Contrary to the Appellant’s assertions, the Examiner finds that Johnson teaches a scroll bar of list box 160 that causes modification to, or navigation of data within, a cell of the table. Ans. 22. Johnson discloses that the entry chosen from list box 160 would appear in the corresponding spreadsheet cell of Figure 3A. See Johnson, col. 8, ll. 36-39. Thus, manipulation of the scroll bar in Johnson’s list box 160 controls navigation of the data in the respective spreadsheet cell and not in other cells. See Id. In addition to the scroll bar for list box 160, the Examiner cites to Johnson’s teachings regarding a slider 166 positioned between the ends of a scroll bar 164. Ans. 22 (citing Johnson, col. 10, ll. 1-8). Johnson teaches Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 6 that moving the slider 166 to the right increases the value displayed in a corresponding cell of the spreadsheet. Johnson, col. 10, ll. 1-8. Based on these teachings, the Examiner concludes that Johnson discloses a column- data control not configured to control navigation of data in any other of the plurality of columns. Ans. 6. We are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s findings. For these reasons, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 1 as obvious over Stead and Johnson, and of dependent claims 5, 7, 25-27, and 30, not separately argued. B. The Rejection of Claim 6 as Obvious over Stead and Johnson Appellant’s dependent claim 6 requires that either the horizontal toggle-button-set or the horizontal scroll-bar is displayed, dependent upon the width of the data in a particular column. See Claim 6. The Examiner finds that although Stead and Johnson fail to show specifically that “the first condition being the width of the first area is not more than double the particular column’s width and the second condition being the width of the first area is more than double the particular column’s width,” it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to assign these conditions. Ans. 7. Appellant argues that the Examiner’s finding is the opposite of the claim 6 requirements, because, according to the features of claim 6, “a small column would not include the toggle-button-set and would include the scroll-bar, and a large column would not include the scroll bar and would include the toggle-button-set.” App. Br. 14 (emphasis omitted). Appellant’s argument, however, is not commensurate with the scope of claim 6, because Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 7 claim 6 does not provide recitations regarding a “small column” or a “large column.” Furthermore, the Examiner finds that, in view of the teachings in the cited prior art of both a toggle-button-set and a scroll-bar, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the relevant art to have configured the first condition and the second condition based on the width of the first area for display. Ans. 7. Accordingly, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s findings and sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 6. C. The Rejection of Claim 8 as Obvious over Stead and Johnson Appellant argues that the rejection of dependent claim 8 is improper because the Examiner relies upon an instance according to the Stead reference in which a table includes just one cell as disclosing the features of claim 8. App. Br. 15. Appellant argues that this instance in Stead is irrelevant because claim 8 requires a column to include first and second cells. Id. Contrary to Appellant’s arguments, the Examiner finds that Stead discloses that the cells may be resized and that multiple cells may be displayed. Ans. 8. Accordingly, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s findings and sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 8. D. The Rejection of Claims 9-15, 17, 18, 20, and 22 as Obvious over Stead and Johnson Although Appellant nominally argues claims 9-15, 17, 18, 20, and 22 separately (App. Br. 15-17), Appellant nonetheless relies on arguments similar to those for claim 1 which we find unpersuasive for the reasons Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 8 indicated previously. We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 9-15, 17, 18, 20, and 22. E. The Rejection of Claim 16 as Obvious over Stead and Johnson Although Appellant nominally argues claim 16 separately (App. Br. 17), Appellant nonetheless relies on arguments similar to those for claim 8 which we find unpersuasive for the reasons indicated previously. We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 16. F. The Rejection of Claims 23 and 24 as Anticipated by Johnson The Examiner determined that Johnson discloses all elements of claims 23 and 24, including a “scroll-bar being selectively associated with only one of a plurality of displayed cells of a table and that, when activated, causes a corresponding shift of displayable data of the associated cell.” Ans. 4. Appellant concedes that Johnson discloses “a table of data including cells formed by the intersection of columns A-G and rows 1-14,” and that Johnson’s Figure 3A, provided above, illustrates a list box 160 including items selectable for modifying data of a cell. App. Br. 9. Appellant argues, however, that, “while the selection of an item in list box 160 may cause insertion of data into a cell of the displayed table, nowhere does the Johnson reference state that selection of an item in the list box 160 causes a shift of any data already in the cell.” App. Br. 10. Appellant’s argument is contrary to the express disclosure in Johnson. Johnson states that, “[s]ince line 3 corresponds to the third entry within the list box, spreadsheet cell Bl within FIG. 3A includes a numeral 3,” but when line 2 is in “the list box, the number 2 would appear in spreadsheet cell B1.” Johnson, col. 8, ll. 33-38. Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 9 Thus, we do not find error in the Examiner’s conclusion that selection of an item in list box 160 causes a shift of data in the cell. Ans. 19. Appellant further argues that while selection of the item in list box 160 may cause insertion of data into a cell, nowhere does the Johnson reference state that the item of list box 160, which is selected, changes in response to scrolling list box 160. App. Br. 10. The Examiner finds, however, that activation of the scroll-bar enables the selection of an item in list box 160 that causes a shift of data in the cell. Ans. 19. In addition to list box 160, the Examiner cites to Johnson’s disclosure of slider 166 positioned between the ends of a scroll bar 164, and Johnson discloses that moving slider 166 to the right increases the value displayed in a corresponding cell of the spreadsheet. Ans. 19 (citing Johnson, col. 10, ll. 1-8). The Examiner relies upon this disclosure as a further example of moving a scroll-bar causing a shift of displayable data of the associated cell. Ans. 20. We are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s findings and sustain the anticipation rejection of claims 23 and 24. G. The Rejection of Claim 28 as Obvious over Stead, Johnson, and Cohn Appellant argues that claim 28 is allowable because it is dependent from claim 1 and that the addition of Cohn does not correct the deficiencies of the combination of Stead and Johnson relied upon to reject claim 1. App. Br. 18. We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 28 for the reasons discussed above for claim 1. We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 28. Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 10 H. The Rejection of Claim 29 as Obvious over Stead, Johnson, and Gasperina Appellant argues that claim 29 is allowable because it is dependent from claim 1 and the addition of Gasperina does not correct the deficiencies of the combination of Stead and Johnson relied upon to reject claim 1. App. Br. 18. We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 29 for the reasons discussed above for claim 1. We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 29. I. The Rejection of Claim 19 as Anticipated by Stead The Examiner determined that Stead discloses all elements of claim 19, including a table and a control device selectively associated with a particular cell. Ans. 3. Specifically, the Examiner finds that “by virtue of teaching spreadsheet documents, HTML documents, and word processing documents, [Stead] inherently teaches that a user interface may provide nonoverlapped tiled windows for independent manipulation of said windows (e.g., as described in Cohn US 5712995, abstract).” Ans. 14 (emphasis added). Furthermore, the Examiner finds that “it would be reasonable to interpret completely separate windows as cells of a table.” Ans. 17 (citing Cohn as an example). We note that Stead does not disclose tiling windows for independent manipulation, nor does Stead provide any disclosure regarding “tiling” or “tiled” windows. In fact, the portions of the Stead cited by the Examiner for this disclosure (Stead, col. 6, ll. 39-45) do not mention tiling and simply state that server 660 in Stead can be coupled to a storage device that stores documents that may include “spreadsheet documents, HTML (Hypertext Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 11 Markup Language) documents, etc.” Stead, col. 6, ll. 42-44. We agree with the Appellant that the Examiner erred in mapping this claim to an inherent “table” in Stead and reliance upon the additional reference of Cohn. Therefore, we do not sustain the anticipation rejection of claim 19. J. The Rejection of Claim 21 as Anticipated by Stead Appellant argues that the rejection of claim 21 is improper for similar reasons as those set forth for claim 19, as claim 21 requires a tabular format including at least one row and plurality of displayed columns. See Claim 21; Reply Br. 7. Once again, the Examiner finds that this tabular format is taught by Stead because it would be reasonable to interpret completely separate windows as cells of table. Ans. 18. For the same reasons set forth above with respect to claim 19, we are persuaded of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 21. Therefore, we do not sustain the anticipation rejection of claim 21. NEW GROUNDS OF REJECTION Under 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b), we enter the following new grounds of rejection. Obviousness Rejection of claims 19 and 21 Claims 19 and 21 are rejected under § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stead and Johnson. As discussed above, the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claims 19 and 21 were deficient because the Examiner incorrectly mapped the table or tabular format of rows and columns required Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 12 by the respective claims to an inherent teaching in Stead of non-overlapped tiled windows representing the cells of a table. Ans. 14, 17. With respect to claims 19 and 21, we agree with the Examiner’s findings and conclusions based on the teachings of Stead for all elements, and we adopt them as our own, except for the Examiner’s findings with respect to the “table” element. Ans. 3-4. More particularly, we find that Stead fails to specifically disclose a “table” having “a plurality of displayed cells,” (as required by claim 19) or “a tabular format including at least one row and plurality of displayed columns,” (as required by claim 21). We find that Johnson teaches these features lacking in Stead. Specifically, Johnson teaches a table with a plurality of displayed cells in multiple rows and columns and illustrates an example table in Johnson’s Figure 3A, shown above. See Johnson, col. 8, ll. 33-43. Additionally, Appellant even concedes that Johnson discloses “a table of data including cells formed by the intersection of columns A-G and rows 1-14.” App. Br. 9. It would have been obvious to the skilled artisan at the time of the invention to use the table taught in Johnson in the windows shown in Stead. Such a modification is tantamount to “the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions” -- an obvious improvement. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417(2007). DECISION The rejections of claims 1-18, 20, 22, and 25-30 under § 103(a) are AFFIRMED. The rejection of claims 23 and 24 under§ 102(b) is AFFIRMED. The rejection of claims 19 and 21 under§ 102(e) is REVERSED. Appeal 2010-009412 Application 10/850,663 13 This decision contains new grounds of rejection pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) for claims 19 and 21. This regulation states that “[a] new ground of rejection pursuant to this paragraph shall not be considered final for judicial review.” Furthermore, 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) also provides that Appellant, WITHIN TWO MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THE DECISION: must exercise one of the following two options with respect to the new ground of rejection to avoid termination of the appeal as to the rejected claims: (1) Reopen prosecution. Submit an appropriate amendment of the claims so rejected or new evidence relating to the claims so rejected, or both, and have the matter reconsidered by the examiner, in which event the proceeding will be remanded to the examiner. . . . (2) Request rehearing. Request that the proceeding be reheard under § 41.52 by the Board upon the same record. . . . 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-IN-PART 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) llw Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation