Ford Global Technologies, LLCDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 31, 20212019006320 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 2021) 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. 14/221,360 03/21/2014 Christian Castro GUZMAN 83418812 7267 28395 7590 03/31/2021 BROOKS KUSHMAN P.C./FGTL 1000 TOWN CENTER 22ND FLOOR SOUTHFIELD, MI 48075-1238 EXAMINER CHOWDHURY, NIGAR ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2484 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/31/2021 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): docketing@brookskushman.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHRISTIAN CASTRO GUZMAN Appeal 2019-006320 Application 14/221,360 Technology Center 2400 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–25. See Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). 1 We refer to the Specification, filed March 21, 2014 (“Spec.”); Final Office Action, mailed January 10, 2019 (“Final Act.”); Appeal Brief, filed June 4, 2019 (“Appeal Br.”); Examiner’s Answer, mailed June 28, 2019 (“Ans.”); and Reply Brief, filed August 26, 2019 (“Reply Br.”). 2 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Ford Global Technologies, LLC. Appeal Br. 1. Appeal 2019-006320 Application 14/221,360 2 We AFFIRM. PRIOR APPEAL This Application was subject to prior appeal 2017-009599, decided on May 30, 2018 (our “Prior Decision”), in which the Board affirmed the Examiner’s rejections of the claims then pending. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims relate to vehicle-based media content capture and remote service integration. Spec., Title. Claim 1, reproduced below with a disputed limitation emphasized in italics, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A vehicle comprising: at least one media content capture device; and a controller, in communication with the at least one media content capture device, configured to: responsive to a user request, capture a media content instance using the at least one media content capture device according to media content capture settings of the vehicle, and post the media content instance to an account of a social media service, the account corresponding to the vehicle and identified to the social media service by a unique identifier of the vehicle. Appeal 2019-006320 Application 14/221,360 3 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:3 Name Reference Date Kang US 2013/0285803 A1 Oct. 31, 2013 Davidson US 2013/0297175 A1 Nov. 7, 2013 Rybak US 2014/0040434 A1 Feb. 6, 2014 Muetzel US 2014/0375807 A1 Dec. 25, 2014 Kim US 2015/0221142 A1 Aug. 6, 2015 REJECTIONS Claims 1–6, 8–12, and 14–18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim and Kang. Final Act. 6–12. Claims 7, 13, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim, Kang, and Davidson. Final Act. 12–16. Claims 21–24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim, Kang, and Muetzel. Final Act. 16–19. Claim 25 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim, Kang, and Rybak. Final Act. 19–20. STANDARD OF REVIEW We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). 3 All citations to the references use the first-named inventor only. Appeal 2019-006320 Application 14/221,360 4 OPINION We have considered in this Decision only those arguments Appellant actually raised in the Briefs. Arguments not made are waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2018). To the extent consistent with our analysis herein, we adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in (1) the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief, and concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following for emphasis. Examiner’s Findings and Appellant’s Contentions of Error The Examiner finds that Kim’s vehicle event alerting system teaches the limitations of claim 1 (citing Kim ¶¶ 11, 15, 24; Fig. 4) except that “Kim . . . fails to disclose the account corresponding to the vehicle and identified to the social media service by unique identifier of the vehicle.” Final Act. 6–8. The Examiner finds that Kang’s disclosure of an in-car data recording system that sends a request to neighboring vehicles for any video that has been recorded of an accident involving the requesting system, including “accident car identification” of the requesting system, teaches the recited account of a social media service, the account corresponding to the vehicle and identified to the social media service by a unique identifier of the vehicle. Id. at 8–9 (citing Kang ¶¶ 43, 44; Fig. 7). The Examiner explains as follows: It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to incorporate the ability to include the account corresponding to the vehicle and identified to the social media service by [a] unique identifier of the vehicle, as taught by Kang et al. into the system of Kim et al., because Appeal 2019-006320 Application 14/221,360 5 such incorporation would allow for the benefit of providing more options to the user for accessing media content, [and] thus increase user flexibility of the system. Final Act. 9. Appellant contends, although mentioning accident and neighboring car identification information, Kang fails to disclose a social media account corresponding to the vehicle or “identification to a social media service by a unique identifier of a vehicle.” Appeal Br. 6. Appellant further argues the Examiner’s reasoning for combining the references is flawed for lack of support. Id. Appellant argues “[n]o citation to the references is provided for this point, nor is any reasoning why this combination would be desirable apart from the fact that such a feature is mentioned in Appellant’s claims.” Id. The Examiner responds, finding Appellant’s argument to be an improper attack on the references individually where the rejections are based on a combination of the references. Ans. 17–18 (citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1986)). The Examiner explains that Kim discloses notifying a vehicle owner of an impact to their unattended vehicle using, among other means, social media messaging. Id. at 19–20. The Examiner finds that Kang’s accident notification that includes accident car identification “meets [the] claimed the account corresponding to the vehicle by ID of the car which is unique identifier of the vehicle.” Id. at 21. The Examiner concludes “[t]herefore, the combination of Kim et al. and Kang et al. teach the limitation as claimed.” Id. In response to Appellant’s contention that the combination of Kim and Kang is improper, the Examiner explains the reasoning for combining the teachings of the prior art may be “found either in the Appeal 2019-006320 Application 14/221,360 6 references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art.” Id. at 19 (citing In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347 (Fed. Cir. 1992), KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007)). Appellant replies, contending the Examiner’s conclusion that Kang’s vehicle ID teaches an account corresponding to the vehicle ID is erroneous. Appellant argues as follows: Kang does not include any disclosure or suggestion of use of accident car ID or neighboring car ID as a social media account identifier. All Kang indicates is that the vehicles have identifiers. Kang never even discloses that the vehicles have accounts that are identified by vehicle identifier. Kang also never mentions social media accounts, let alone that the vehicles have social media accounts that are identified by the vehicle identifiers. Reply Br. 2. Analysis Appellant’s contentions are unpersuasive of reversible Examiner error. In particular, we agree with the Examiner that Appellant’s argument is an improper attack on the references individually that fails to address what is taught or suggested by their combination. In arriving at our decision, we note that, although the present claims recite a social media service account corresponding to the vehicle (and identified to the social media service by a unique identifier of the vehicle), the corresponding language raises claim interpretation issues similar to those considered in our Prior Decision. Therein, we found that Appellant’s Specification did not include a description of what relationship was intended by an account linked to a unique identifier of the vehicle. Addressing this issue, we found as follows: Appeal 2019-006320 Application 14/221,360 7 [A]n account of a driver using a particular vehicle is associated with or “linked to” that vehicle because it is identified by the person driving or using the vehicle, i.e., linked to a unique identifier of the vehicle (the driver). Accordingly, under a broad but reasonable interpretation of the disputed limitation, in view of Appellant’s Specification, Kim’s notification to a user of a vehicle using a social media services format would have been understood or inferred to encompass posting to a social media account linked to a unique identifier of the vehicle (i.e., an account of a user associated with the user of the vehicle). Prior Decision 6. Similarly, in the instant Appeal, we are unable to identify a definition of what is meant by an account corresponding to a vehicle other than, as recited by pending claim 1, that the account is identified to the social media service by a unique identifier of the vehicle. Having previously found that an account is linked to a vehicle because it is used to notify a user, we similarly interpret an account corresponds to a vehicle because the account is used to convey information about the vehicle such as provided by Kim’s alert. Thus, consistent with our Prior Decision, we find Kim’s disclosure of alerting a user to a vehicle event using social media services teaches or suggests using an account corresponding to the vehicle that experienced the event. Because Kang discloses sending a message including a vehicle identifier (i.e., Kang’s accident car ID), the combination of Kim and Kang teaches or suggests a unique identifier of a vehicle wherein an account corresponding to the vehicle (i.e., the social media account used by Kim’s vehicle to send an alert) corresponds to the vehicle identifier. Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner in finding that the combination of Kim and Kang teaches or reasonably suggests the disputed limitation of a controller configured to “post the media content instance to an account of a social media service, the account corresponding to the vehicle and identified Appeal 2019-006320 Application 14/221,360 8 to the social media service by a unique identifier of the vehicle” are recited by claim 1. We are also unpersuaded that the rejection is improper because, as argued by Appellant, “[n]o citation to the references is provided” in support of the Examiner’s assertion that the combination would provide more options to the user for accessing media content and increase user flexibility of the system “nor is any reasoning [provided explaining] why this combination would be desirable.” Appeal Br. 6. As explained by the Examiner, the reason to combine the teachings of references need not come from the references themselves but may be “found . . . in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art.” Ans. 19 (citing In re Fine, In re Jones, and KSR). Other than contesting the Examiner’s stated reason for combining the teachings of Kim and Kang as being inadequate, Appellant does not explain why the combination would not “allow for the benefit of providing more options to the user for accessing media content, [and] thus increase user flexibility of the system” as found by the Examiner. Final Act. 9. For the reasons discussed above, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1 together with the rejection of independent claims 8 and 14 which are argued on the same basis as claim 1. Appeal Br. 7. We further sustain the rejections of dependent claims 2–7, 9–13, and 15–25 which are not argued separately with particularity. CONCLUSION We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–6, 8–12, and 14–18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Kim and Kang. Appeal 2019-006320 Application 14/221,360 9 We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 7, 13, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Kim, Kang, and Davidson. We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 21–24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Kim, Kang, and Muetzel. We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claim 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Kim, Kang, and Rybak. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–6, 8–12, 14–18 103 Kim, Kang 1–6, 8–12, 14–18 7, 13, 19, 20 103 Kim, Kang, Davidson 7, 13, 19, 20 21–24 103 Kim, Kang, Muetzel 21–24 25 103 Kim, Kang, Rybak 25 Overall Outcome 1–25 RESPONSE 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 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation