VOLKSWAGEN AG

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardAug 3, 2020

15030022 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 3, 2020)

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. 15/030,022 04/15/2016 Patrik LÜNNEMANN 511150.0249269 (200) 7719 26646 7590 08/03/2020 Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP/HAK NY 2200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20037 EXAMINER LEIBY, CHRISTOPHER E ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2622 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/03/2020 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): uuspto@hunton.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte PATRIK LUNNEMANN and CHRISTOPHER SEUBERT Appeal 2019-001208 Application 15/030,022 Technology Center 2600 Before JAMES R. HUGHES, JOYCE CRAIG, and MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges. HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Claims 11, 14–19, 21, and 22 are pending,1 stand rejected, are appealed by Appellant, and are the subject of our decision under 35 U.S.C. 1 Appellant attempted to cancel claim 22 in an Amendment filed April 3, 2018 (after the Final Rejection was mailed). The Examiner’s Advisory action (mailed April 23, 2018) treated Appellant’s Amendment as a request for reconsideration (rather than an amendment) and did not enter the cancelation of claim 22. Thus, claim 22 remains pending. Appeal 2019-001208 Application 15/030,022 2 § 134(a).2 See Final Act. 1; Appeal Br. 1.3 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM IN PART. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The invention, according to Appellant, “relates to a method and [a system] for displaying a display element on at least one vehicle-side display device.” Spec. 1:10–11. More specifically, Appellant’s invention relates to displaying graphical information (a display element) on an in-vehicle display device where a terminal (e.g., a tablet computer) computes the number of pixels in the display element (an absolute pixel number of the display element) as a function of a predetermined density-independent pixel (quantity) number, a reference scaling quantity, and a resolution/size ratio (ratio of the resolution of the terminal display and the vehicle display), and provides the data for displaying the display element to the vehicle display. See Spec. 1:14–7:38, 2:19–33, and 2:35–6:3; see also Abstract. Claims 11 (directed to a method) and 19 (directed to a system) are independent. Claim 11, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 11. A method for displaying a display element on at least one vehicle-side display device of a vehicle, the method comprising: 2 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Volkswagen AG. See Appeal Br. 2. 3 We refer to Appellant’s Specification (“Spec.”), filed Apr. 15, 2016 (claiming benefit of DE 10 2013 221 086.8, filed Oct. 17, 2013); Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.”), filed July 9, 2018; and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”), filed Nov. 26, 2018. We also refer to the Examiner’s Final Office Action (“Final Act.”), mailed Jan. 10, 2018; and Answer (“Ans.”) mailed Oct. 1, 2018. Appeal 2019-001208 Application 15/030,022 3 transmitting, from the vehicle to a terminal via a data link, information about a size of the vehicle-side display device; assigning, by the terminal, a predetermined density- independent pixel number to the display element; determining, by the terminal, an absolute pixel number of the display element as a function of the density-independent pixel number, a reference scaling quantity, and a resolution/size ratio, wherein the resolution/size ratio is a ratio between a resolution of a terminal-side display device and the size of the vehicle-side display device; providing, by the terminal, data for displaying the display element, as a function of the absolute pixel number of the display element; and transmitting, from the terminal to the vehicle via the data link, the data for displaying the display element. Appeal Br. 8 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date DeAguiar et al. (hereinafter “DeAguiar”) US 5,101,436 Mar. 31, 1992 Kato et al. ( hereinafter “Kato”) US 2013/0190978 A1 July 25, 2013 Hong et al. (hereinafter “Hong”) US 2014/0359493 A1 Dec. 4, 20144 Supporting Multiple Screens 1 Android Developers, Supporting Multiple Screens, Guide (2013), (hereinafter “Android Developers”).5 4 The instant Hong application claims benefit to KR 10-2013-0062046, filed May 30, 2013. 5 Android Developers Guide (Non-Patent Literature (NPL)) available at http://web.archive.org/web/20131005183849/https://developer.android.com/ guide/practices/screens_support.html. The reference (provided by the Examiner) is dated Oct. 5, 2013. The reference was initially provided by Appeal 2019-001208 Application 15/030,022 4 REJECTIONS6, 7 1. The Examiner rejects claims 11, 16, 17, 19, 21, and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kato and Android Developers. See Final Act. 3–10. 2. The Examiner rejects claims 14 and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kato, Android Developers, and Hong. See Final Act. 10–12. 3. The Examiner rejects claim 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kato, Android Developers, and DeAguiar. See Final Act. 12–13. ANALYSIS Obviousness Rejection of Claims 11, 16, 17, 19, 21, and 22 The Examiner rejects independent claim 11 (as well as independent claim 19, and dependent claims 16, 17, 21, and 22) as being obvious over Kato and Android Developers. See Final Act. 3–6; Ans. 6–16. Appellant Appellant (see Information Disclosure, filed July 23, 2018), dated June 19, 2013. The reference omits page numbers. We refer to Android Developers as if consecutively numbered beginning with page 1. 6 The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”), Pub. L. No. 112–29, 125 Stat. 284 (2011), amended 35 U.S.C. § 103. Because the present application has an effective filing date (Oct. 17, 2013) after the AIA’s effective (March 16, 2013), this decision refers to 35 U.S.C. § 103. 7 Appellant omits claim 22 from the claim appendix. The Examiner rejects claim 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as being indefinite. Final Act. 2–3. Appellant does not address the indefiniteness rejection of claim 22 or the obviousness rejection of claim 22. Because the cancelation of claim 22 was not entered (see footnote 1) and claim 22 is still pending, and because Appellant has not addressed the indefiniteness rejection of claim 22, we summarily affirm the Examiner’s indefiniteness rejection of claim 22. Appeal 2019-001208 Application 15/030,022 5 contends that Kato and Android Developers do not teach the disputed limitations of claim 11. See Appeal Br. 3–5; Reply Br. 2–4. Specifically, Appellant contends, inter alia, that the Examiner-cited portions of Android Developers “only describe that Android runs on various devices, and scales or resizes the application as necessary. Nowhere do these sections describe one device providing display data to another device based in part on the claimed resolution/size ratio.” Reply Br. 3; see Appeal Br. 3–5; Reply Br. 2–4. We agree with Appellant that the Examiner-cited portions of Kato and Android Developers do not teach or suggest “providing, by the terminal, data for displaying the display element, as a function of the absolute pixel number of the display element,” where the terminal determines the “absolute pixel number of the display element as a function of the density-independent pixel number, a reference scaling quantity, and a resolution/size ratio,” and “the resolution/size ratio is a ratio between a resolution of a terminal-side display device and the size of the vehicle-side display device.” Appeal Br. 8 (Claims App.). See Appeal Br. 3–5; Reply Br. 2–4; Android Developers, 1– 14; and Kato ¶¶ 353–356, 360, Figs. 1, 18, 29. The Examiner takes the position that Kato describes providing information from a portable terminal to an in-vehicle display device based on the display screen size or resolution. See Final Act. 3–4 (citing Kato ¶¶ 353–356, 360, Figs. 1, 18, 29). The Examiner relies on Android Developers to teach adapting a display element (data to be displayed) for different screen sizes as a function of an absolute pixel number (screen pixels in Android Developers), a density-independent pixel number (density independent pixel (dp) in Android Developers), a reference scaling quantity Appeal 2019-001208 Application 15/030,022 6 (baseline density in Android Developers), and resolution/size ratio (scaling ratio in Android Developers (see Android Developers, 2, 7; Figs. 1, 4)). See Final Act. 4–6; Ans. 9–16 (citing Android Developers, 1–3, 7). Android Developers, however, discloses optimizing applications by designing user interfaces for various screen configurations using density- independent pixel units. See Android Developers, 1–2. Android Developers also discloses providing alternative drawing (bitmap drawable) resources for different screen densities where the drawables follow a scaling ratio. See Android Developers, 7. The Examiner (in the Examiner’s Answer) clarifies that Android Developers (page 2) discloses support for different screen sizes and resolutions, and concludes that Android Developers teaches resizing display information for different screens by determining a resolution/size ratio. See Ans. 11–14. The Examiner does not persuasively explain how the scaling ratio of Android Developers (page 7) or Android Developers’ support for different screen sizes and resolutions (Android Developers, page 2) teaches or suggests a screen resolution/screen size ratio for adapting information on a terminal screen for display on a different size or resolution screen in a vehicle. At most, Android Developers describes the capability of resizing or adapting a user interface for different screen configurations when a developer uses density independent pixel units or provides alternate resources—Android Developers does not describe how the resizing is accomplished. Likewise, Kato also does not describe resizing based on the elements recited in claim 11. The Examiner does not explain sufficiently how the cited portions of Kato and Android Developers at least suggest the disputed features of “providing, by the terminal, data for displaying the display element, as a function of the absolute pixel number of the display Appeal 2019-001208 Application 15/030,022 7 element,” where the terminal determines the “absolute pixel number of the display element as a function of the density-independent pixel number, a reference scaling quantity, and a resolution/size ratio,” and “the resolution/size ratio is a ratio between a resolution of a terminal-side display device and the size of the vehicle-side display device.” Appeal Br. 8 (Claims App.). Consequently, we are constrained by the record before us to find that the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of Kato and Android Developers renders obvious Appellant’s claim 11. Independent claim 19 includes limitations of commensurate scope. Claims 16, 17, 21, and 22 depend from and stand with their respective base claims. Obviousness Rejection of Claims 14, 15, and 18 The Examiner rejects dependent claims 14 and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Kato, Android Developers, and Hong. See Final Act. 10–12. The Examiner rejects dependent claim 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Kato, Android Developers, and DeAguiar. See Final Act. 12–13. The Examiner does not suggest, and we do not find, that the additional cited references, Hong or DeAguiar, cure the deficiencies of the Kato, Android Developers combination (supra). Therefore, we reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of dependent claims 14, 15, and 18 for the same reasons set forth for claim 11 (supra). Appeal 2019-001208 Application 15/030,022 8 CONCLUSION Appellant has shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 11, 14–19, 21, and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 11, 14–19, 21, and 22. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 11, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22 103 Kato, Android Developers 11, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22 14, 15 103 Kato, Android Developers, Hong 14, 15 18 103 Kato, Android Developers, DeAguiar 18 22 112(b) Indefiniteness 22 Overall Outcome 22 11, 14–19, 21 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). AFFIRMED IN PART