Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01704/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01704-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Tara Chand Singhal
Appellant

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

IN RE: TARA CHAND SINGHAL,

Appellant

______________________ 

2014-1704

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in No. 11/497,047.

______________________ 

Decided: March 10, 2015

______________________ 

TARA CHAND SINGHAL, Torrance, CA, pro se.

NATHAN K. KELLEY, Office of the Solicitor, United 

States Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, for 

appellee. Also represented by JEREMIAH HELM, MOLLY R.

SILFEN. 

______________________ 

Before LOURIE, BRYSON, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

Tara Chand Singhal (“Singhal”) appeals from the decision of the United States Patent and Trademark Office 

(“PTO”) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) 

affirming the Examiner’s rejection of claims 16, 25, and 

34 of U.S. Patent Application 11/497,047 (“the ’047 appliCase: 14-1704 Document: 26-2 Page: 1 Filed: 03/10/2015
2 IN RE: SINGHAL

cation”) as obvious in view of the prior art. See Ex parte

Singhal, No. 2011-004195 (P.T.A.B. May 1, 2014) (“Decision”). Because the Board did not err in affirming the 

Examiner’s rejection under § 103(a), we affirm. 

BACKGROUND

Singhal filed the ’047 application with claims directed 

to a system using two-way communication satellites for 

regulating the start of a car’s ignition based on a driver’s

mental state as determined by response times. Claim 16, 

which the Board analyzed as representative of the 

claimed subject matter, reads as follows:

16. A system that prevents temporarily mentally 

impaired drivers from driving a vehicle comprising:

a. a driver mental impairment (DMI) 

safety system located in a ground station is linked via a communication satellite interface to a control module in 

the vehicle;

b. the DMI safety system in the ground 

station is connected via Internet that 

enables driver and vehicle profiles required for a driver mental impairment 

test to be created and maintained in 

the ground station via the Internet;

c. the DMI safety system from the driver 

mental impairment test through only 

an interactive voice response system 

from the ground station conducts a reaction time test on a vehicle driver to 

measure the driver’s mental state for 

safely operating the vehicle enabling 

centralized operation and management 

of the DMI safety system from the 

ground station via the communication 

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IN RE: SINGHAL 3

satellite interface, without the need to 

create and maintain individual driver 

profiles in the control module in the 

vehicles. 

Decision at 2–3.

The Examiner rejected the claims under 35 U.S.C. 

§ 103(a) as unpatentable in view of the prior art. In 

particular, the Examiner cited U.S. Patent 6,232,874 of 

Murphy (“Murphy”), stating that the reference teaches a 

system that prevents temporarily mentally impaired 

drivers from driving a vehicle comprising: a driver mental 

impairment (“DMI”) safety system located in a ground 

station that is linked via a communication satellite interface to a control module in the vehicle, the DMI system 

through only an interactive voice response system from 

the ground station conducts a reaction time test on the 

driver to measure the driver’s mental state, without the 

need to create and maintain individual driver profiles in 

the control module in the vehicles. The Examiner noted 

that Murphy does not teach a DMI system that is connected via the Internet to allow driver and vehicle profiles 

to be created and maintained at the ground station, but

that U.S. Patent Publication 2007/0134156 of Mizuno

(“Mizuno”) teaches such a system to provide an alternative communication protocol and to improve system 

availability. The Examiner concluded that it would have 

been obvious to one of skill in the art to combine Murphy 

and Mizuno, references in the same field of endeavor. 

Singhal attempted to distinguish the claimed invention from the prior art by emphasizing that Murphy uses 

multiple GPS satellites, which transmit one way signals 

of the satellites’ locations and times to a device in a vehicle to determine the vehicle’s location, whereas the 

claimed invention uses a single communication satellite 

for a bidirectional communication link between a ground 

station and various vehicles. The Examiner found, howCase: 14-1704 Document: 26-2 Page: 3 Filed: 03/10/2015
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ever, that the satellite communication taught by Murphy 

includes bidirectional transmissions, and moreover that 

nothing in the ’047 application’s specification or claims

specifies a bidirectional communication requirement. The 

Examiner also found that the additional features, such as

vehicle location, do not teach away from the combination

of Murphy and Mizuno.

Singhal also asserted that the claimed control module 

differs from the prior art because the module is not specific to the DMI system, already being a part of a vehicle’s 

OnStar system for satellite communication. Moreover, 

Singhal noted, the driver and vehicle profiles are stored, 

not in a control module inside the vehicle, but instead at a 

central ground station, which also remotely conducts 

reaction time tests by an interactive voice response 

(“IVR”) system. Singhal contended that the Murphy 

control module, in contrast, is specifically installed in 

each vehicle, stores driver profiles within the module, and 

locally conducts the determination of driver mental state. 

The Examiner found, however, that it was well known in 

the art to locate relevant user profiles and corresponding 

computer code remotely, and further to access and maintain those profiles via the Internet. The Examiner therefore concluded that the claims were unpatentable over 

Murphy and further in view of Mizuno. The rejection was 

made final and Singhal appealed to the Board.

The Board agreed with the Examiner that the claims 

would have been obvious in view of the prior art. The 

Board agreed that Murphy teaches interactive communication between a base station and a satellite because it 

discloses a system that sends information to and receives 

control actions from a base station. Decision at 4–5. The 

Board also agreed that the combined teachings of Murphy 

and Mizuno disclose the maintenance of driver profiles 

either at the vehicle or at a remote location connected by 

satellite communication. Id. at 5. The Board further

agreed with the Examiner that the limitation of testing 

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driver impairment by reaction time was met by Murphy’s 

requirement of a biometric indicium within a required 

response time. Id. at 6. The Board rejected Singhal’s 

argument that Mizuno is nonanalogous art, instead 

finding that Murphy and Mizuno are analogous because 

“they are in the same field of endeavor of preventing 

accidents due to driver fatigue or impairment.” Id. at 6–7. 

The Board also noted that Singhal incorrectly made his 

nonobviousness arguments based on the prior art references separately, without considering their combined 

teachings and the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in 

the art. Id. at 7–8. The Board therefore affirmed the 

Examiner’s rejection under § 103(a). 

Singhal appealed from the Board’s decision. We have 

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4).

DISCUSSION

We review the Board’s legal conclusions 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). Substantial evidence means “such 

relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as 

adequate to support a conclusion.” Consol. Edison Co. v. 

NLRB, 305 U.S. 197, 229 (1938).

A claim is unpatentable if, to one of ordinary skill in 

the pertinent art, the differences between the claimed 

invention and the prior art are such that the claimed 

invention as a whole would have been obvious. 35 U.S.C. 

§ 103(a) (2006)*; see also KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 

U.S. 398, 406–07 (2007). Obviousness is a question of 

* Because the patent application at issue was filed 

in August 2006, the pre–America Invents Act version of 

§ 103(a) applies. See Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, 

Pub. L. No. 112-29, 125 Stat. 284, 293 (2011).

 

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6 IN RE: SINGHAL

law, based on underlying factual findings. Graham v. 

John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17–18 (1966); Elsner, 381 F.3d 

at 1127. The differences between the claims and the prior 

art, as well as the scope and content of the prior art, are 

findings of fact. Graham, 383 U.S. at 17.

Singhal argues that the Examiner and the Board 

erred in concluding that the claimed invention would have 

been obvious in view of Murphy and Mizuno. Singhal 

maintains that Murphy’s teaching of GPS satellites is 

significantly different from the claimed communication 

satellite used for conducting a reaction time test. Singhal 

also disputes the comparison of Murphy’s control module 

with the claimed control module. Singhal further asserts

that Mizuno, which he characterizes as teaching a computer system loaded remotely with executable program 

codes, is not comparable to the claimed system that 

remotely sets up driver and vehicle profiles at a ground 

station via the Internet. Singhal also argues that Mizuno 

is not analogous art, and thus the Examiner improperly 

used hindsight to combine Murphy and Mizuno, because 

the scope of the analogous art is defined by an inventor’s

subjective perspective.

The PTO responds that the Board did not err in finding the claimed invention to be an obvious variation of the 

system described in Murphy with a communication choice

well known in the art, as taught by Mizuno. The PTO 

argues that substantial evidence supports the Examiner’s 

factual findings and the Board’s affirmance of those 

findings that Murphy disclosed a system meeting nearly 

all of the claim limitations, and that Mizuno disclosed the 

remaining limitation as a routine design choice. The PTO 

also asserts that substantial evidence supports the 

Board’s factual finding that both Murphy and Mizuno are

analogous art in the same field as the claimed invention 

because their disclosures are consistent with preventing 

accidents due to driver fatigue or impairment.

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We agree with the PTO that the Board did not err in 

concluding that the cited prior art references rendered the 

claims obvious. As noted by the Board, Murphy teaches

the use of a satellite for interactive communications—

information from a vehicle system to a base station, and 

control actions to and from the base station. See, e.g., 

Murphy col. 4 ll. 18–30. Murphy also teaches restricting 

driving access based on an interactive reaction time test, 

as it discloses prompting the provision of various biometric indicia (including voice samples) and required 

response times for providing such indicia. See, e.g., id.

col. 4 ll. 42–55, col. 5 ll. 33–65. The prior art further 

teaches the maintenance of and access to information 

profiles for assessing driver impairment either locally in 

the vehicle (Murphy) or remotely via satellite (Mizuno),

which provides a finite number—only two—of known and

predictable solutions. See, e.g., Murphy col. 4 l. 53–col. 5 

l. 20; Mizuno ¶ 105. The additional disclosures in the 

cited prior art, such as the use of a vehicle’s location, do 

not teach away from the combination of Murphy and 

Mizuno. Substantial evidence therefore supports the 

Board’s and the Examiner’s findings that the combined 

teachings of Murphy and Mizuno rendered the claimed 

invention obvious to one of skill in the art at the time of 

the invention.

We also agree with the PTO that substantial evidence 

supports the Board’s finding that Murphy and Mizuno are 

analogous art. We reject Singhal’s contention that the 

inventor’s subjective intent or knowledge at the time of 

the invention is the controlling factor in determining 

whether art is analogous. The scope of the field of endeavor is a factual determination based on the scope of 

the application’s written description and claims. In re 

Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320, 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2004). If a reference 

is not within the relevant field of endeavor, it may still be 

properly considered if it is reasonably pertinent to the 

problem; that is, if it would have logically commended 

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itself to an inventor’s attention. In re Clay, 966 F.2d 656, 

659 (Fed. Cir. 1992). The Board and the Examiner correctly found that the relevant field of endeavor was preventing accidents due to driver fatigue or impairment, 

instead of the more narrow definition of the field of endeavor that Singhal proposed, because the ’047 application’s specification and claims are not so limiting. 

Substantial evidence therefore supports the Board’s

finding that Murphy and Mizuno are in the same field of 

endeavor and thus are analogous art.

CONCLUSION

We have considered Singhal’s remaining arguments 

and find them unpersuasive. We conclude that the 

Board’s factual determinations are supported by substantial evidence and we agree with its ultimate legal conclusion of obviousness. Accordingly, the decision of the 

Board is affirmed.

AFFIRMED

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