GAMBRO LUNDIA AB

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardJun 16, 2021

2020001572 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 16, 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. 15/300,609 09/29/2016 Jonas Schaefer 0405.000103US01 9535 26813 7590 06/16/2021 MUETING RAASCH GROUP 111 WASHINGTON AVE. S., SUITE 700 MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55401 EXAMINER CASILLAS, ROLAND J ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2179 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/16/2021 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): ptodocketing@mrgs.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JONAS SCHAEFER, JOHN O’MAHONY, and THOMAS LENDWAY Appeal 2020-001572 Application 15/300,609 Technology Center 2100 Before RICHARD M. LEBOVITZ, ADAM J. PYONIN, and NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s rejection. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 Herein, “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Gambro Lundia AB. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2020-001572 Application 15/300,609 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction The Application describes “graphical user interfaces configured to display [an] alarm region when alarms are issued during an extracorporeal blood treatment and to allow an operator to dock the alarm region.” Spec. 1. Claims 1–23 are pending; claims 1, 2, 5, and 6 are independent. Appeal Br. 1–5. Claim 1 is reproduced below for reference (emphasis added): 1. An extracorporeal blood treatment system comprising: a display apparatus comprising a graphical user interface, wherein the graphical user interface is configured to depict an operations region; and a computing apparatus comprising one or more processors operatively coupled to the display apparatus, wherein the computing apparatus is configured to: display on the graphical user interface the operations region; issue an alarm indicating an issue with an extracorporeal blood treatment being performed; display, when an alarm is issued, an alarm region in the operations region, wherein the alarm region comprises information relevant to the issued alarm; and allow a user to dock the alarm region to another region of the graphical user interface other than the operations region. References and Rejections The Examiner relies on the following prior art: Name Reference Date Hickle US 2003/0135087 A1 July 17, 2003 Curtis US 2012/0138533 A1 June 7, 2012 Wang US 2012/0154264 A1 June 21, 2012 Furuhashi US 2014/0102959 A1 Apr. 17, 2014 Appeal 2020-001572 Application 15/300,609 3 Claims 1–7, 9, 17, and 19–22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(l) as being anticipated by Curtis. Final Act. 3. Claims 8, 13, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Curtis in view of Wang. Final Act. 10. Claims 10–12, 18, and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Curtis in view of Hickle. Final Act. 12. Claims 15 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Curtis in view of Furuhashi. Final Act. 6. ANALYSIS Claim 1 recites, inter alia, a computer apparatus configured to “allow a user to dock the alarm region to another region of the graphical user interface other than the operations region.” The Examiner finds Curtis discloses this limitation for two alternative reasons. First, the Examiner finds the bottom of the display of Curtis is tantamount to the recited “another region,” because Curtis depicts “switching to another tab (i.e Treatment Stats or Settings) to display only the docked portion of the alarm at the bottom of the display.” Final Act. 4 (emphasis omitted); Curtis Figs. 23–24. Second, the Examiner finds “Curtis teaches ‘docking’ the alarm to another region when a user moves to another display tab (i.e. relocating the alarm to the background).” Ans. 5; Curtis ¶ 119. Appellant argues the Examiner’s rejection is in error, under either proffered reasoning. First, Appellant contends Curtis’s bottom of the display does not anticipate the claimed “another region,” “because the Examiner’s allegedly-equivalent docked alarm region in Curtis et al. is already docked in another region, i.e., the bottom treatment progress bar, Appeal 2020-001572 Application 15/300,609 4 when the alarm is issued and displayed,” and “[t]herefore, no docking to another region can take place as the allegedly-equivalent docked alarm region is already docked.” Appeal Br. 10, 11 (emphasis omitted). Second, Appellant contends Curtis’s background does not anticipate the claimed another region, because “no person having ordinary skill in the art would reasonably equate the ‘background’ or ‘behind another tabbed page’ to another region of the graphical user interface.” Reply Br. 3. We are persuaded the Examiner’s rejection is in error. “The correct inquiry in giving a claim term its broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification is . . . an interpretation that corresponds with what and how the inventor describes [the] invention in the specification, i.e., an interpretation that is ‘consistent with the specification.’” In re Smith Int’l, Inc., 871 F.3d 1375, 1382–83 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (citations omitted). Here, Appellant’s Specification describes that, in docking the alarm region, the “alarm region 250 may be merely moved to, or depicted in, a different location within the graphical user interface.” Spec. 30. The Specification further explains: it is to be understood that all the graphical elements, information, and/or functionality of the alarm region 250 may not be actually (e.g., spatially, etc.) moved into 30 the status region 230, but instead, the alarm region 250 as shown in FIGS. 4-5 may disappear, or be removed, revealing the operations region 210 (e.g., the entire operations region) while one or more graphical elements, information, and/or functionality of the alarm region 250 may be displayed within the status region 230 and one or more areas of the status region 230 may appear differently than the one or more areas had prior to the docking of the alarm 5 region 250. Id. at 30, 31 (emphases added). That is, the Specification describes the claimed limitation “to dock the alarm region to another region of the Appeal 2020-001572 Application 15/300,609 5 graphical user interface” as changing the appearance of both the initial alarm region and the “another region” to which the alarm is docked. See id.; see also Figs. 4–6. Curtis, as relied on by the Examiner, discloses a user interface displaying an alarm tab and “[t]he bottom treatment progress bar may be replaced by an alarm indicator.” Curtis ¶ 119. Notably, Curtis shows the bottom alarm indicator is displayed both (1) concurrent with the alarm tab and (2) when the user switches to alternative “tab view[s] of the user interface.” Id.; see also Curtis Figs. 22–24. That is, Curtis shows the alarm tab display may disappear while still displaying the bottom alarm indicator, whereas Appellant’s Specification clearly differentiates “docking” from merely removing all or a portion of the alarm. Compare Curtis Figs. 22–24 and ¶¶ 118–119, with Figs. 4–6 and Spec. 28. Consistent with the Specification, we agree with Appellant that Curtis does not anticipate the limitation “dock the alarm region to another region,” because Curtis does not depict the another region (i.e., either the background or the status bar) “appear[s] differently” after docking. Spec. ¶ 31; see Appeal Br. 12. As we are persuaded Curtis does not disclose each limitation of claim 1, we find the Examiner’s anticipation rejection is in error. CONCLUSION We are persuaded the Examiner errs in finding Curtis anticipates the limitation “allow a user to dock the alarm region to another region” recited by claim 1 and similarly recited by independent claim 2. Claims 5 and 6 recite “allow[ing] a user to dock the alarm region to the dock region,” which the Examiner finds anticipated by Curtis for similar reasons. See Final Act. Appeal 2020-001572 Application 15/300,609 6 6, 7; Ans. 6. We are persuaded the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claims 5 and 6 is in error for the reasons discussed above. We do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 2, 5, and 6, or the rejections of the claims dependent thereon. DECISION SUMMARY Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–7, 9, 17, 19–22 102 Curtis 1–7, 9, 17, 19–22 8, 13, 14 103 Curtis, Wang 8, 13, 14 10–12, 18, 23 103 Curtis, Hickle 10–12, 18, 23 15, 16 103 Curtis, Furuhashi 15, 16 Overall Outcome 1–23 REVERSED