In Re: Lorkovic

712 F. App'x 997
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
DecidedNovember 13, 2017
Docket2017-1678
StatusUnpublished

This text of 712 F. App'x 997 (In Re: Lorkovic) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re: Lorkovic, 712 F. App'x 997 (Fed. Cir. 2017).

Opinion

Lourie, Circuit Judge.

Joseph Ernest Lorkovic appeals from a decision of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) affirming the Examiner’s rejection of claims 62-64, 67-69, 71-73, 75, and 77-86 of U.S. Patent Application 11/384,662 (“the ’662 application”) as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (2006). 1 See Ex parte Lorkovic, No. 2015-004341, 2016 WL 6136754, at *1, *6 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 19, 2016) (“Board Decision”); Joint App. (“J.A.”) 8-20. Because the Board did not err in its decision, we affirm.

Background

Lorkovic filed the ’662 application on March 20, 2006, claiming priority from a provisional application filed on March 22, 2005. J.A. 117. The ’662 application, which is entitled “Dual Display Interactive Video,” is directed to a home entertainment content delivery system “for interactive content dissemination over the internet,” See ’662 application Abstract. Claim 62, the only independent claim, reads as follows: 62. A system for displaying video content and associated web content, comprising:

a processor operable to:

cause video content to display in an area of a first display of a first remote device;
receive a first set of position coordinates associated with a user selection within the first area of the first display during display of the video content on the first display;
identify web content based on the first set of position coordinates; and
cause the web content to display on a second display of a second remote device, wherein the first device and the second device are remote from each other, and wherein the processor does not reside at the first remote device and the second remote device.

J.A. 89.

The Examiner rejected all pending claims of the ’662 application as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Claims 62-64, 67-69, 71-73, and 77-85 were rejected as obvious over U.S. Patent 5,918,012 to Astiz et al. (“Astiz”) in view of U.S. Publication 2005/0229233 to Zimmerman et al. (“Zimmerman”). 2 J.A. 102. Both Astiz and Zimmerman are directed to providing complementary information or content based on a user interaction with a video. Astiz discloses a system that displays video content from the internet based on the user interaction. See Astiz col. 4 ll. 48-59, col. 10 ll. 53-65. Zimmerman discloses a method where the complementary information may be sent to “a secondary screen, such as a personal digital assistant, a touch-screen remote control, a web pad, a mobile phone, or the like.” See Zimmerman ¶ 57. The Examiner found that it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to combine the internet enabled system in Astiz with the secondary screen taught by Zimmerman to achieve the claimed subject matter.

Lorkovic appealed to the Board, which affirmed the Examiner’s obviousness rejections. In his appeal, Lorkovic argued that Astiz and Zimmerman were not com-binable because integrating Zimmerman with Astiz would require altering how As-tiz functions and thus teaches away from doing so. The Board was not persuaded by Lorkovic’s contentions, which it found were premised on “‘physical’ or ‘bodily' incorporation of limitations of one reference into the other.” Board Decision, 2016 WL 6136754, at *2. The Board held that the teachings were properly combinable, even if the physical objects were not, and that the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. Id.

Lorkovic filed a request for rehearing by the Board, which the Board denied. Ex parte Lorkovic, No. 2015-004341, 2016 WL 7474870, at *4 (P.TA..B. Dec. 20, 2016) (“Rehearing Decision”). Lorkovic argued that the Board had failed to require that (1) the Examiner establish a prima facie case of obviousness and (2) Astiz and Zimmerman were not compatible systems and could not be combined to result in the present invention.

The Board found that Lorkovic waived the prima fade case argument by not raising it in his prior briefing. Id. at *1-2. The Board also explained that even if the argument had not been waived, the Examiner had satisfied his initial burden of presenting a prima fade case of obviousness. Id. at *2 (finding that the Examiner had properly articulated how the combination of Astiz and Zimmerman rendered the claimed subject matter obvious).' The Board reconsidered its earlier decision and still concluded that the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art over Astiz and Zimmerman. Id. at *3-4.

Lorkovic timely appealed to this court. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A).

Discussion

We review the Board’s legal determinations de novo, In re Elsner, 381 F.3d 1125, 1127 (Fed. Cir. 2004), and the Board’s factual findings underlying those determinations for substantial evidence, In re Gartside, 203 F.3d 1305, 1316 (Fed. Cir. 2000). A finding is supported by substantial evidence if a reasonable mind might accept the evidence to support the finding. Consol. Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U.S. 197, 229, 59 S.Ct. 206, 83 L.Ed. 126 (1938). Obviousness is a question of law based on underlying factual findings, In re Baxter, 678 F.3d 1357, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2012), including what a reference teaches, In re Beattie, 974 F.2d 1309, 1311 (Fed. Cir. 1992), the existence of a reason to combine references, In re Hyon, 679 F.3d 1363, 1365-66 (Fed. Cir. 2012), and whether the prior art teaches away from the claimed invention, In re Mouttet, 686 F.3d 1322, 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2012).

We first consider whether the Board erred in affirming the Examiner’s obviousness rejections. As an initial matter, the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office (“the Director”) argues that Lorkovic erroneously challenges the findings in the Examiner’s final office action rather than the Board’s final decision.

We agree with the Director that we must review the final Board decision, not the Examiner’s final rejection. See 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A).

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