Ex Parte Tarkkala et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 31, 2017

13665537 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 31, 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. 13/665,537 10/31/2012 Lauri Aarno Olavi TARKKALA P6565US00 1039 11764 7590 Ditthavong & Steiner, P.C. 44 Canal Center Plaza Suite 322 Alexandria, VA 22314 EXAMINER HUYNH, NAM TRUNG ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2645 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/02/2017 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): docket@dcpatent.com Nokia. IPR @ nokia. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte LAURI AARNO OLAVI TARKKALA, THOMAS PIEKENBROCK, and JARI KARJALA1 Appeal 2017-005783 Application 13/665,5372 Technology Center 2600 Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, IRVIN E. BRANCH, and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM-IN-PART. Technology The application relates to tracking user movement for location-based applications or services. Spec. Abstract. 1 Appellants identified Mr. Karjala as residing in Helsinki, Finland. See Application Data Sheet (Oct. 31, 2012). However, the Filing Receipt (Nov. 30, 2012) and Bib Data Sheet (June 19, 2014) incorrectly list this as Helsinki, Germany. In the event of further prosecution, the Examiner may wish to correct Mr. Karjala’s country of residence to Finland. 2 Appellants state the real party in interest is Here Global B.V. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2017-005783 Application 13/665,537 Illustrative Claim Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below with the limitations at issue emphasized: 1. A method comprising facilitating a processing of and/or processing (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal, the (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal based, at least in part, on the following: at least one determination, utilizing a processor, of a request, from one or more applications, for location information associated with at least one device; at least one determination of one or more location traces associated with the at least one device, wherein respective location traces of the one or more location traces represent respective portions greater than a single point of a movement history associated with the at least one device, wherein the respective location traces each include an n-tuple sequence of time stamp information and position information associated with the at least one device, n being an integer greater than 1; and at least one determination of an indexing of the respective location traces of the one or more location traces, wherein the indexing is based, at least in part, on a service parameter; at least one storage of the indexed one or more location traces in a traces database including the indexed location traces. Rejection Claims 1—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combination of Kato (US 2011/0028164 Al; Feb. 3, 2011) and Li (US 2012/0058782 Al; Mar. 8, 2012). Final Act. 2-9. ISSUES 1. Did the Examiner err in finding Kato teaches or suggests “respective location traces of the one or more location traces represent 2 Appeal 2017-005783 Application 13/665,537 respective portions greater than a single point of a movement history associated with the at least one device,” as recited in claim 1? 2. Did the Examiner err in finding Kato teaches or suggests “respective ones of the one or more location traces include at least one additional parameter associated with the at least one device, the at least one additional parameter being selected from velocity, direction or a combination thereof,” as recited in claim 2? ANALYSIS Claims 1, 3—11, and 13—20 Claim 1 recites “location traces . . . represent respective portions greater than a single point of a movement history.” Appellants argue Kato only teaches “individual points” (Reply Br. 3) or “when not to record movement history” (App. Br. 7). We agree with the Examiner, however, that Kato teaches multiple points in the movement history. Ans. 2—3. Neither the claims nor the Specification limit a “trace” to a particular granularity of time, but even if they did, Kato teaches tracking a second location after the user “has moved from the previous recording point.” Kato 139, Fig. 5. Therefore, Kato teaches or suggests location traces with multiple points in a device’s movement history. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, and claims 3—11 and 13—20, which Appellants argue are patentable for similar reasons. See App. Br. 4; 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). Claims 2 and 12 Claim 2 recites “respective ones of the one or more location traces include at least one additional parameter associated with the at least one 3 Appeal 2017-005783 Application 13/665,537 device, the at least one additional parameter being selected from velocity, direction or a combination thereof.”3,4 Claim 12 contains a commensurate limitation. The Examiner finds the “direction” can be calculated because “[e]ach subsequent coordinate point the [user] moves to[,] from an origination or previous coordinate point[,] indicates movement in the direction of the subsequent coordinate point” and the motivation for such a calculation “can be found in Figure 8” of Kato because “[direction must be determined from the coordinate points in order to accurately generate a display of the movement history.” Ans. 3^4. Kato’s Figure 8, however, merely depicts the tracked locations, never the paths or directions between them. Although we agree with the Examiner that the net direction could be determined from consecutive points, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner has not sufficiently explained why a person of ordinary skill in the art would have included direction as an additional parameter in the location trace (rather 3 On July 12, 2016, Appellants sought to amend the preambles of claims 2 and 12 after the Final Office Action. App. Br. 1—2. The Examiner’s Advisory Action of August 1, 2016, did not indicate whether those amendments were entered. Id. In the event of further prosecution, the Examiner should clarify whether the amendments were entered. Because these amendments were made to correct informalities, solely for this appeal we consider claims 2 and 12 with the proposed amendments. 4 We note Appellants argued claim 2 under the same subheading as claim 1. See App. Br. 7. By regulation, “any claim(s) argued separately or as a subgroup shall be argued under a separate subheading that identifies the claim(s) by number.” 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). Appellants should use appropriate subheadings in the future if they want such arguments considered. 4 Appeal 2017-005783 Application 13/665,537 than, for example, merely calculating direction from the points in the location trace). Accordingly, given the record before us, we are constrained to reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2 and 12. DECISION For the reasons above, we affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 3—11, and 13—20. We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 2 and 12.5 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. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED-IN-PART 5 In the event of further prosecution, the Examiner may wish to consider whether “A method comprising facilitating a processing of and/or processing (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal, the (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal based, at least in part, on the following” renders claim 1 and its dependent claims indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph. For example, a person of ordinary skill in the art may not be reasonably apprised of what constitutes infringement of the only method step of “facilitating a processing.” Similarly, the scope of the claimed “data” or “information” or “signal” may be uncertain given that it is merely “based, at least in part, on” the recited items and does not necessarily include the recited items. 5