Shadi Iskander

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardSep 23, 2019

14580668 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 23, 2019)

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. 14/580,668 12/23/2014 Shadi Iskander P73819 1526 104333 7590 09/23/2019 International IP Law Group, P.L.L.C. 13231 Champion Forest Drive Suite 410 Houston, TX 77069 EXAMINER CHIUSANO, ANDREW TSUTOMU ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2174 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/23/2019 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): Intel_Docketing@iiplg.com eofficeaction@appcoll.com inteldocs_docketing@cpaglobal.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte SHADI ISKANDER ____________ Appeal 2018-009189 Application 14/580,668 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, SCOTT B. HOWARD, and STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1, 4–11, 14–19, 21–26, and 28–30, which constitute all of the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Intel Corporation. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2018-009189 Application 14/580,668 3 THE INVENTION The disclosed and claimed invention is directed to “techniques for presenting time event information within an analog clock display.” Spec. ¶ 1.2 Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. An electronic device, comprising: a display unit; an event information interface to receive information about a time event; and a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to: display an analog clock on the display unit, wherein the analog clock comprises an hour scale corresponding to an hour hand of the analog clock and a minute scale corresponding to a minute hand of the analog clock; display a time event icon on the hour scale of the analog clock at a position that identifies a time of the time event; and move the time event icon from the hour scale to the minute scale if an amount of time remaining to the time event is within a specified time threshold. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal is: 2 We refer to the Specification filed Dec. 23, 2014 (“Spec.”); Final Office Action mailed Aug. 22, 2017 (“Final Act.”); Appeal Brief filed Apr. 5, 2018 (“Appeal Br.”); Examiner’s Answer mailed July 27, 2018 (“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief filed Sept. 27, 2018 (“Reply Br.”). Appeal 2018-009189 Application 14/580,668 4 Forstall et al. US 2009/0006994 A1 Jan. 1, 2009 (“Forstall”) Waibel et al. US 2011/0307241 A1 Dec. 15, 2011 (“Waibel”) Lee et al. US 2012/0066629 A1 Mar. 15, 2012 (“Lee”) Jang et al. US 2015/0160856 A1 June 11, 2015 (“Jang”) Knight et al. US 2015/0378320 A1 Dec. 31, 2015 (“Knight”) Barnes et al. US 2016/0151668 A1 June 2, 2016 (“Barnes”) Shin US 2016/0161922 A1 June 9, 2016 Pierre Dragicevic, SpiraClock: A Continuous and Non-Intrusive Display for Upcoming Events (2002). REJECTIONS Claims 1, 4, 11, 14, 19, 21, 26, and 28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Knight and Dragicevic. Final Act. 3. Claims 5, 22, and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Knight, Dragicevic, and Lee. Final Act. 5. Claims 6, 15, and 29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Knight, Dragicevic, and Forstall. Final Act. 6. Claims 7, 16, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Knight, Dragicevic, and Waibel. Final Act. 7. Claims 8–10, 17, 18, and 30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Knight, Dragicevic, and Barnes. Final Act. 8. Appeal 2018-009189 Application 14/580,668 5 Claim 23 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Knight, Dragicevic, Shin, and Jang. Final Act. 10. ANALYSIS Claim 1 recites “mov[ing] the time event icon from the hour scale to the minute scale if an amount of time remaining to the time event is within a specified time threshold.” The Examiner finds Knight’s countdown timer feature teaches switching the time event icon if an amount of time remaining to the event time is within a specified threshold, but does not explicitly teach moving the time event icon from the hour scale to the minute scale if an amount of time remaining to the time event is within a specified time threshold. Final Act. 3 (citing Knight Figs. 1, 8, ¶¶ 17–20, 24, 32, 34, 42); see Ans. 4 (citing Knight ¶¶ 19–20). The Examiner further finds Dragicevic’s time events within a 1- hour threshold moving to the outer spiral teaches moving the time event icon to the minute scale if an amount of time remaining to the time event is within a specified time threshold. Final Act. 3 (citing Dragicevic 1, Fig. 1); see Ans. 4. Appellant argues “Knight does not disclose moving an icon from an hour scale to a minute scale of the analog clock.” Appeal Br. 11; see also Reply Br. 2. Appellant also argues “Dragicevic does not disclose moving an icon from an hour scale to a minute scale.” Appeal Br. 12. According to Appellant, Dragicevic’s sectors “remain at all times on a minute scale of the analog clock” and the “gradual movement outward does not move the colored sectors from an hour scale to a minute scale of the analog clock.” Id.; see also Reply Br. 3. Appeal 2018-009189 Application 14/580,668 6 We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument as the Examiner has not identified sufficient evidence or provided sufficient explanation as to how the combination of Knight and Dragicevic teaches moving the time event icon from the hour scale to the minute scale as claimed. The cited sections of Knight teach “a countdown timer feature 130 that visually presents . . . the time remaining until the start time of the scheduled event” as a “curved indicator 132” that “correspond[s] to a number of minutes remaining until the start time of the impending scheduled event.” Knight ¶ 19. Dragicevic teaches a “SpiraClock [which] is an analog clock with a white spiral inside” and “[e]vents [that] are depicted on the spiral as colored sectors.” Dragicevic 1. In Dragicevic, “[a]s time moves forward, the spiral unwinds and event sectors move in a radial way.” Id. Dragicevic’s “[s]ector edges coincide with minute marks” and “[e]vents occurring in less than one hour can therefore be directly read on the outer branch of the spiral.” Id. In other words, the sections of Knight and Dragicevic cited by the Examiner and on the record before us do not teach moving the time event icon from the hour scale to the minute scale specifically when an amount of time remaining to the time event is within a specific threshold as claimed. Instead, Knight teaches including an additional time event indicator on the minute scale; and Dragicevic teaches time event icons (i.e., colored sectors) that are always moving (i.e., as time moves forward), and using only the minute scale (i.e., each revolution being an hour with the colored sectors coinciding with minutes). Therefore, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner’s finding that the combination of Knight and Dragicevic teaches the disputed limitation is Appeal 2018-009189 Application 14/580,668 7 in error because it is not supported by a preponderance of the evidence. See In re Caveney, 761 F.2d 671, 674 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (The Examiner’s burden of proving non-patentability is by a preponderance of the evidence.); see also In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967) (“The Patent Office has the initial duty of supplying the factual basis for its rejection. It may not, because it may doubt that the invention is patentable, resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in its factual basis.”). Accordingly, we are constrained on the record before us to reverse the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1, along with the rejection of independent claims 11, 19, and 26, which recite limitations commensurate in scope to the disputed limitation discussed above, and dependent claims 4, 14, 21, and 28. See Appeal Br. 12. Moreover, because the Examiner has not shown that the additional references cure the foregoing deficiency regarding the rejection of the independent claims 1, 11, 19, and 26, we will not sustain the obviousness rejections of dependent claims 5–10, 15–18, 22–25, 29, and 30. See Appeal Br. 13–15. DECISION In summary: Claims Rejected Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 4, 11, 14, 19, 21, 26, 28 § 103 Knight, Dragicevic 1, 4, 11, 14, 19, 21, 26, 28 5, 22, 24 § 103 Knight, Dragicevic, Lee 5, 22, 24 Appeal 2018-009189 Application 14/580,668 8 Claims Rejected Basis Affirmed Reversed 6, 15, 29 § 103 Knight, Dragicevic, Forstall 6, 15, 29 7, 16, 25 § 103 Knight, Dragicevic, Waibel 7, 16, 25 8–10, 17, 18, 30 § 103 Knight, Dragicevic, Barnes 8–10, 17, 18, 30 23 § 103 Knight, Dragicevic, Shin, Jang 23 Overall Outcome 1, 4–11, 14–19, 21–26, 28–30 REVERSED