Ford Global Technologies, LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 31, 2021

2019006320 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 2021)

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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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:
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[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
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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.
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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