Ex Parte WEIDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 29, 201412502933 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 29, 2014) 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. 12/502,933 07/14/2009 Zhiyu WEI 1411.737BS 7129 86636 7590 09/02/2014 BRUNDIDGE & STANGER, P.C. 2318 MILL ROAD, SUITE 1020 ALEXANDRIA, VA 22314 EXAMINER KAYES, SEAN PHILLIP ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2833 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/02/2014 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 ZHIYU WEI ____________ Appeal 2012–010202 Application 12/502,933 Technology Center 2800 ____________ Before CHARLES F. WARREN, MICHAEL P. COLAIANNI, and GEORGE C. BEST, Administrative Patent Judges. BEST, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL On October 7, 2011, the Examiner finally rejected claims 1–19 of Application 12/502,933 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious. Appellant1 seeks reversal of these rejections pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Because the Examiner erred in construing the independent claims, we REVERSE. 1 IGRIS Engineering Lab, Ltd., is identified as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 3.) Appeal 2012–010202 Application 12/502,933 2 BACKGROUND The ’933 Application describes methods and apparatus for synchronizing system times in an electronic device. Spec. ¶ 1. Appellant’s method is useful in devices, such as cell phones, that have an internal real time clock (“RTC”) that can or must be synchronized with an external reference clock. Id. at ¶¶ 2–4. These devices typically include an external time obtaining module that reaches out to the external reference clock to obtain the time it shows so that the device’s RTC can be synchronized with the external reference clock. Id. at ¶¶ 18–19. Claim 1 is representative of the ’933 Application’s claims and is reproduced below: 1. A method for synchronizing a system time in an electronic device, comprising: when the electronic device is executing a boot process, disabling an external time obtaining function of the electronic device for obtaining an external reference time, obtaining an internal clock time, and synchronizing the system time of the electronic device with the internal clock time; and when the electronic device has completed the boot process, enabling the external time obtaining function to obtain the external reference time. (App. Br. 10 (Claims App’x) (emphasis added).) Appeal 2012–010202 Application 12/502,933 3 REJECTION Claims 1–19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Gamo2 and Yanase.3 (Ans. 3.) DISCUSSION Our review of this rejection begins, as it must, with claim construction. See Oakley, Inc. v. Sunglass Hut Int’l, 316 F.3d 1331, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (Anticipation and obviousness require the court to compare the properly construed claims to the available prior art.). During prosecution, an application’s claims are given their broadest reasonable scope consistent with the specification. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). The words used in a claim must be read in light of the specification, as it would have been interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. Id. In this case, we must determine the proper construction of the phrases “external time obtaining function” as used in independent claims 1 and 19, and “external time obtaining module” as used in claim 9. Because we address the same issue in the construction of these phrases, we shall discuss the phrases together, focusing on the word “obtaining.” In ordinary use, the word “obtain” means “to come into possession of; get, acquire, or procure, as through an effort or request.” “Obtain,” DICTIONARY.COM UNABRIDGED, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/obtain, (Aug. 28, 2014). Our review 2 US Patent Application Publication 2006/0234671 A1, published Oct. 19, 2006. 3 US Patent No. 7,376,050 B2, issued May 20, 2008. Appeal 2012–010202 Application 12/502,933 4 of Appellant’s Specification does not reveal any special definition or usage that is inconsistent with the ordinary definition. Accordingly, we construe the term “external time obtaining function” as “a function that requests and receives an external reference time.” We construe the phrase “external time obtaining module” as “a portion of the electronic device that requests and receives an external reference time.” In reviewing the Examiner’s rejection, it is apparent that the Examiner applied an erroneous claim construction in formulating the rejection. In particular, the Examiner found that Gamo describes a method that includes the step of disabling an external time obtaining function of the electronic device for obtaining an external time. (Ans. 3 (citing Gamo ¶ 14).) The cited portion of Gamo states that the external reference time is received at the reception station, but is discarded during inhibition periods such as system start up. Gamo ¶ 14, see also id. at ¶¶ 75-79. For the Examiner’s finding that Gamo describes disabling an external time obtaining function to be correct, the Examiner must have construed the phrase “external time obtaining function” as including a requirement that the external time received by the electronic device be available to the devices system software for use in correcting the RTC. Thus, it is apparent that the Examiner erred in the interpretation of independent claims 1, 9, and 19. Furthermore, the Examiner’s error in claim construction led to an erroneous finding of fact regarding what Gamo describes. In view of the errors identified above, we must reverse the rejection of claims 1–19 of the ’933 Application. In so doing, we express no opinion whether the differences between the claimed step of “disabling an external time obtaining function” and Gamo’s disclosure when considered along with any other differences between the claimed invention as a whole and the prior Appeal 2012–010202 Application 12/502,933 5 art would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. CONCLUSION For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the rejection of claims 1–19 of the ’933 Application as obvious over the combination of Gamo and Yanase. REVERSED pgc Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation