Honeywell International Inc.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardJun 10, 20212020000902 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 10, 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. 14/938,694 11/11/2015 Henry Chen H0046249-1161.1974101 1856 90545 7590 06/10/2021 HONEYWELL/STW Intellectual Property Services Group 300 S. Tryon Street Suite 600 Charlotte, NC 28202 EXAMINER MAZUMDER, SAPTARSHI ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2612 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/10/2021 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): Honeywell.USPTO@STWiplaw.com patentservices-us@honeywell.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte HENRY CHEN, WEILIN ZHANG, and PETER LAU Appeal 2020-000902 Application 14/938,694 Technology Center 2600 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, JASON J. CHUNG, and MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20.1 See Appeal Br. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies Honeywell International, Inc. as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2020-000902 Application 14/938,694 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claimed subject matter relates to displaying information of a facility; in particular, providing visualization indicative of the overall status of an HVAC system. Spec. 1:9–13. Appellants indicate that overlying temperature information onto renderings of floorplan data within graphical user interfaces is known, but that prior approaches are limited in terms of the operational awareness conveyed. Id. at 1:18–20. Independent claim 1 is illustrative: 1. A computer implemented method for displaying facility information on a display, the method including: maintaining electronic access to a repository of digital floorplan data, wherein the floorplan data is defined by a plurality of scalable resolution independent vector floorplan images, each scalable resolution independent vector floorplan image representing a physical space in a facility; maintaining access to a database that associates each of a plurality of the scalable resolution independent vector floorplan images with one or more specific pieces of building management hardware of a building management system that service the physical space represented by the corresponding scalable resolution independent vector floorplan image; receiving building management data from the specific pieces of building management hardware via a network; and in response to a request from a client terminal, enabling the client terminal to render one or more of the scalable resolution independent vector floorplan images at a desired position and resolution on the display, wherein the rendered one or more of the scalable resolution independent vector floorplan images include one or more graphical characteristics that are determined by reference to the building management data received from the respective associated specific pieces of building management hardware that service the physical space represented by the rendered one or more of the scalable resolution independent Appeal 2020-000902 Application 14/938,694 3 vector floorplan images such that the building management data is bound to the rendered one or more of the scalable resolution independent vector floorplan images to enable real time application of the building management data to the rendered one or more of the scalable resolution independent vector floorplan images. Appeal Br. 23 (Claims App.). REFERENCES Name Reference Date Shi et al. (“Shi”) US 2008/0109159 A1 May 8, 2008 Hart US 2008/0183483 A1 July 31, 2008 Geadelmann et al. (“Geadelmann”) US 2009/0057427 A1 Mar. 5, 2009 Han US 2010/0017739 A1 Jan. 21, 2010 Lee et al. (“Lee”) US 2012/0044138 A1 Feb. 23, 2012 Chegini et al. (“Chegini”) US 2014/0033069 A1 Jan. 30 2014 REJECTION Claims 1, 3–6, 11, 13–16, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of Geadelmann, Hart, and Lee. Claims 2 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of Geadelmann, Hart, Lee, and Chegini. Claims 7, 8, and 17–18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of Geadelmann, Hart, Lee, and Hughes. Appeal 2020-000902 Application 14/938,694 4 Claims 9 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of Geadelmann, Hart, Lee, and Han. Claim 19 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of Geadelmann, Hart, Lee, and Shi. OPINION Appellant argues that the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of the claims are in error because the combination of references does not teach or suggest each element of the claims. We begin with claim 1. Claim 1 recites, inter alia, wherein the rendered one or more of the scalable resolution independent vector floorplan images include one or more graphical characteristics that are determined by reference to the building management data received from the respective associated specific pieces of building management hardware that service the physical space . . . to enable real time application of the building management data to the rendered one or more of the scalable resolution independent vector floorplan images. Appeal Br. 23 (Claims App.). The Examiner finds claim 1 to be obvious over the combination of Geadelmann, Hart, and Lee. With respect to the disputed limitation cited above, the Examiner finds this limitation to be taught by the combined teachings of those three references. Specifically, the Examiner relies upon Geadelmann for teaching the graphics representation as temperature data from building management data, Hart for the scalable resolution independent vector floorplan image, and Lee for the graphical representation of sensor data on a scalable resolution independent floorplan. Ans. 7; Final Act. 3–10. Appeal 2020-000902 Application 14/938,694 5 Appellant first argues that none of the applied references are concerned with “deficiencies in operational awareness, nor teach a solution to this problem.” Appeal Br. 10. However, the obviousness determination is not limited by the problem sought to be solved, either by Appellant or in a single reference. KSR, 550 U.S. at 402 (“the appeals court erred in assuming that a person of ordinary skill in the art attempting to solve a problem will be led only to those prior art elements designed to solve the same problem. . . . a person of ordinary skill often will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle”). Nor does claim 1 recite, either expressly or inherently, “operational awareness.” Accordingly, such an argument is not persuasive. Appellant further argues that temperature data is not displayed graphically in Geadelmann. Appeal Br. 10. Appellant argues that Geadelmann displays a graphical representation of the floorplan having symbolic representations of thermostats, yet temperature data is displayed in a separate pane from the floorplan. Id. Appellant further argues that the thermostats are not part of the scalable resolution independent floorplan image, but instead merely superimposed thereon. Id. at 12–13, 16. The test for obviousness is “what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.” In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). Here, the Examiner relies upon a combination of the references to teach or suggest this limitation. Because the Examiner relies on Geadelmann’s use of temperature data of a building floorplan as combined with Lee’s use of graphical representation of sensor data on a scalable resolution independent floorplan, Appellant’s arguments against Geadelmann alone are not persuasive as to error in the Examiner’s Appeal 2020-000902 Application 14/938,694 6 combination of Geadelmann, Hart, and Lee. For the same reason, Appellant’s arguments against the individual teachings of Hart and Lee (Appeal Br. 14–16; Reply Br. 2–3), and Appellant’s argument that no individual reference considers the entirety of the disputed limitation of claim 1 (Appeal Br. 17), are not persuasive as to error in the combination. Appellant further argues, “it is not clear how to combine Lee with Geadelmann and Hart to arrive at a solution analogous to the present invention.” Appeal Br. 16. Appellant argues that the Examiner’s proposed combination, resulting in a floorplan receiving a scalable vector representation from each thermostat, is unclear because neither the thermostats nor the temperature data of Geadelmann are bound to the floorplan. As discussed above, the test for obviousness is not focused on the appellant’s solution, but instead on the limitations of the claim. Furthermore, the test for obviousness is “not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference,” but instead “what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.” Keller, 642 F.2d at 425. The Examiner combines Geadelmann’s use of graphical representation of a floorplan of a building along with temperature data (supported by Geadelmann’s Figure 4) with Hart’s use of scalable resolution independent vector floorplan images representing physical space in a building (supported by Hart Figure 2 and paragraphs 66 and 94) to provide floor plan data that can be planned and zoomed. Final Act. 4–5. The Examiner further combines Lee’s teaching of creating a scalable vector Appeal 2020-000902 Application 14/938,694 7 graphics including graphical characteristics based on real-time sensor data (supported by Lee paragraphs 81–84) to enable real-time application of building management data within the scalable vector graphics. Id. at 9–10. In view of the Examiner’s expressed combination of the teachings of the prior art, we are not persuaded that the Examiner’s proposed combination is unclear or lacks any required element of claim 1. Finally, Appellant argues that the combination of Geadelmann, Hart, and Lee is improper because it is a reconstruction of Appellant’s claim based solely on information gleaned from the Specification. Appeal Br. 16–18; Reply Br. 4–5. Appellant argues that none of the cited prior art documents, when considered individually, set forth the disputed limitation, and for that reason, the Examiner’s combination is improperly based solely upon guidance from the Specification. Appeal Br. 17; Reply Br. 5. It has been noted that, [a]ny judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a reconstruction based on hindsight reasoning, but so long as it takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was made and does not include knowledge gleaned only from applicant’s disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper. In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392 (CCPA 1971). Furthermore, the test for obviousness is “what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.” Keller, 642 F.2d at 425. Here, the Examiner finds motivation to combine Hart’s scalable resolution independent vector floorplan image with Geadelmann’s building floorplan representation and temperature data from building management data in order to be able to pan and zoom the floorplan representation. Final Appeal 2020-000902 Application 14/938,694 8 Act. 4–5. We agree that Hart supports this motivation, independently from Appellant’s Specification. See, e.g., Hart ¶¶ 94, 97. The Examiner finds motivation for combining Lee’s graphical representation of sensor data on a scalable resolution independent floorplan with the aforementioned teachings of Geadelmann and Hart in order to dynamically update the floorplan characteristics with sensor data. Final Act. 10. We agree that Lee supports this motivation, independently from Appellant’s Specification. See, e.g., Lee ¶¶ 82–84. For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. Appellant argues against the rejections of claims 2–20 on the same reasoning that we have found unpersuasive as to the rejection of claim 1. Appeal Br. 18–22 (arguing, for example, “[f]or similar reasons to those detailed above with respect to claim 1”). Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s rejections of claims 2–20. CONCLUSION For the above-described reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 1–20 as being obvious over the applied references under 35 U.S.C. § 103, as detailed below. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). Appeal 2020-000902 Application 14/938,694 9 DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 3–6, 11, 13– 16, 20 103 Geadelmann, Hart, Lee 1, 3–6, 11, 13–16, 20 2, 12 103 Geadelmann, Hart, Lee, Chegini 2, 12 7, 8, 17, 18 103 Geadelmann, Hart, Lee, Hughes 7, 8, 17, 18 9, 10 103 Geadelmann, Hart, Lee, Han 9, 10 19 103 Geadelmann, Hart, Lee, Shi 19 Overall Outcome 1–20 AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation