Ex Parte WEI

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 29, 2014

12502933 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 29, 2014)

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