Bruce J. Anderson et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 2, 2019

13188620 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Dec. 2, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/188,620 07/22/2011
25231 7590 12/03/2019
Marsh Fischmann & Breyfogle LLP
8055 East Tufts A venue, Suite 450
Denver, CO 80237
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Bruce J. Anderson
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
50196-00156 8552
EXAMINER
DOSHI, AKSHA Y
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2423
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/03/2019 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):
ptomail@mfblaw.com
ptomail@mfblaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BRUCE J. ANDERSON, DANIEL A. BOULET,
and DANIEL C. WILSON
Appeal2018-003393
Application 13/188,620
Technology Center 2400
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, ERIC B. CHEN, and CARLL.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL 1
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the
Examiner's decision to reject claims 134, 136-146, and 148-182. 3 We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 An oral hearing was held for this appeal on November 5, 2019.
2 We use the word "Appellant" to refer to "applicant" as defined in
37 C.F.R. § l .42(a) (2017). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as
Invidi Technologies Corporation. Appeal Br. 1.
3 Claims 1-133, 135, and 147 have been cancelled.
Appeal2018-003393
Application 13/188,620
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellant's disclosure is directed to "insertion of selected content or
assets into a network content stream, e.g., interspersed with or otherwise
combined with other content such as audio and/or video programming."
Spec. 1. Claim 134, which is illustrative of the invention, reads as follows:
134. A method for use in connection with delivering
assets to users of a communications network, said method
compnsmg:
receiving a request for dissemination of at least one asset
via said communications network, said request defining one or
more dissemination parameters associated with said at least one
asset relating to a desired dissemination of said at least one
asset, wherein said dissemination parameters identify at least
one audience classification and a target audience size of
network users that are associated with said at least one audience
classification independent of any identification of a specific
asset delivery opportunity associated with a programming
event; and
satisfying said request by targeting delivery of said at
least one asset to at least said target audience size of network
users associated with said at least one audience classification
and associated with at least one programming event of said
communications network, said targeting involving matching
said at least one asset having said associated dissemination
parameters with at least said audience size of said network users
that are associated with said at least one audience classification,
said targeting further involving delivery of said at least one
asset to less than the whole of an audience of said at least one
programming event at a time of delivery of said at least one
asset, and wherein said at least one asset is associated with one
or more dissemination parameters different than one or more
said dissemination parameters associated with said assets other
than said at least one asset.
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Appeal2018-003393
Application 13/188,620
The Examiner's Rejections
Claims 134, 136-139, 143, 146, 148-150, 154, 171-175, and 177-182
stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I02(e) as being anticipated by Eldering (US
6,820,277 Bl; iss. Nov. 16, 2004). See Non-final Act. 4--22.
Claims 140-142, 151-153, 156, 157, 159, 161, and 163-169 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as unpatentable over Eldering and Riedl
(US 2005/0039205 Al; pub. Feb. 17, 2005). See Non-final Act. 22-39.
Claims 144 and 176 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over Eldering and Eldering 2 (US 2007 /0157231 Al; pub. July
5, 2007). See Non-final Act. 39-40.
Claims 145 and 155 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over Eldering and Ozer (US 7,870,023 B2; iss. Jan. 11, 2011).
See Non-final Act. 40-41.
Claims 158, 160, 162, and 170 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ I03(a) as unpatentable over Eldering, Riedl, and Tokorotani
(US 2003/0036979 Al; pub. Feb. 20, 2003). See Non-final Act. 42--46.
ANALYSIS
35 USC§ 102(e) Rejection
Claim 134
With respect to the rejection of claim 134, Appellant argues the cited
portions in columns 7 and 8 of Eldering "fail to teach delivery of an asset to
less than the whole of an audience of a programming event at the time of
delivery of an asset to satisfy a request as recited in claim 134" because "the
correlation value relied upon by the Examiner is unrelated to an audience
size to which an advertisement is delivered." Appeal Br. 13-14. Appellant
further argues Eldering' s teachings relate to generating ad characterization
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Appeal2018-003393
Application 13/188,620
vectors which "allow an advertiser to provide information regarding the
characteristics of the ad provided by the advertiser," generating avail
characterization vectors which "provide information regarding the nature of
the avails in a programming stream," and generating subscriber
characterization vectors which "provide data regarding subscribers." Appeal
Br. 14 (citing Eldering columns 5-7). According to Appellant, these vectors
describe "an ad, an avail, or a subscriber" or their combination by averaging
the demographic and the avail correlations. Id.
Appellant specifically asserts the Examiner's statement that "' [a]
correlation value 1 would represents that every users (sic) of programming is
getting assigned advertisement, correlation value less than 1 means that less
than all the subscriber of that programming is getting that advertisement"' is
not supported by the disclosure of Eldering. Appeal Br. 14--15. In that
regard, Appellant explains the cited "correlation" in column 7, lines 40-54,
of Eldering, "simply relates to the amount of correlation or similarity
between either an ad characterization vector and a subscriber/node
characterization vector or an ad characterization vector and an avail
characterization vector" which "are based on a normalized dot product of the
respective vectors." Appeal Br. 15.
In response, the Examiner explains the recited "target audience size of
network" is interpreted as "selective number of subscriber of cable network
that is based on subscribers that belong to Hispanic ethnic group that makes
up the finite size of audience receiving targeted advertisement," which is
met by Eldering's disclosure of the specific targeted audience of
advertisements based on specific parameters. Ans. 4 ( citing Eldering
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Application 13/188,620
column 5, lines 30-45). The Examiner also refers to the disclosed audience
classification, such as
audience having a Household size of 4, for creating a model of
targeting specific Ads based on the received Ad characteristic
to deliver specific Ads to an audiences of Hispanic with a
household size of 4 from among all active viewers at the time
of the delivery of the specific Ads
as meeting the disputed claim limitation. Ans. 5 ( citing Eldering column 8,
lines 43-55).
We are persuaded by Appellant's contentions that the Examiner erred.
Although Eldering considers household size as one of the characteristics of
the displayed subscriber information, as stated by Appellant (Reply Br. 4 ),
"the Examiner merely points to selection of a category within a particular
demographic parameter" rather than providing "a corresponding targeted
audience size of users that are associated with the category." We are further
persuaded by Appellant's assertion that the cited portions of Eldering in
columns 7 and 8 include "no teaching that the advertisement characterization
vector has such a direct controlling impact on the delivery of ads to
subscribers" but merely "would support that such an advertisement may
have a high 'combined correlation' (see Eldering at column 7, lines 55-63)
in relation to a subscriber/group of subscribers and a particular avail." See
Reply Br. 5. Appellant also asserts:
However, Eldering's teachings still relate to placement of the ad
relative to an avail in a program, where the entirety of the
program's audience receives the correlated ad. That is, as
described in detail in the Appeal Brief at pages 14--15, the
correlation values in Eldering do not directly relate to which
network subscribes receive an advertisement. Rather, Eldering
describes at column 7, line 55 to column 8, line 33 that the
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Appeal2018-003393
Application 13/188,620
correlation value is used to derive an impact value, which is the
number of subscribers ( estimated viewership) multiplied by
combined correlation value. In tum, the module uses
"information regarding avail opportunities with the result of the
correlation to match advertisements with avails" (Eldering at
column 7, lines 64---66) and calculates the placement of the
advertisements based on the degree of correlation and a pricing
scheme according to those described in Eldering at column 8.
Notably, there is no teaching that the ad is delivered to less than
the entirety of the program. Rather, it appears that the
combined correlation value is used in connection with a
pricing/bidding approach to place the ad in the program avail
for delivery to the entire audience.
Id. We agree. In other words, Eldering uses the number of subscribers to
determine a correlation factor without considering the delivery of ads to a
portion of those subscribers that would be less than the audience group set to
receive the advertisement, as recited in claim 134.
Claim 171
Appellant contends Eldering's "dynamically linking ads and program
streams" does not teach satisfying "the targeting parameters including an
audience classification and an audience size of network users associated
with the audience classification" by aggregating "a subset of network users
from across the plurality programming events of the communication network
based on user equipment devices of the network users associated with the
classification parameters of the network users." Appeal Br. 25-26.
According to Appellant, the audience classifications of Eldering "is used for
generation of characterization vectors for generation of a correlation value
for ad placement" without any relationship to "any concept regarding
aggregation of users across the plurality programming events for satisfaction
of a request," as recited in claim 1 71. Appeal Br. 26.
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Application 13/188,620
The Examiner responds by focusing on the disclosure of Eldering in
columns 7 and 8 and the tabular list depicted in Figure 6 and finds where
"one advertisement is correlated with combined or aggregated multiple
programming avails, i.e. combining or aggregating targeted users across
plurality of programming of cable network" and matching "the target or
correlation criteria of advertisement with subscriber criteria." Ans. 9. We
disagree. As stated by Appellant, the cited disclosure describes a correlation
between the assets and the available avails without explaining how the
advertisements are correlated with the aggregated subsets of the network
users across a number of programming events. See Reply Br. 10-11.
Summary
Accordingly, on the record before us, we do not sustain the 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) rejection of claims 134 and 171, or claims 136-139, 143, 146, 148-
150, 154, 172-175, and 177-182 dependent therefrom.
35 USC§ 103(a) Rejections
In rejecting the remaining claims, the Examiner relies on Eldering in
the same manner discussed above in the context of claims 13 4 and 1 71.
Furthermore, the Examiner identifies no additional teachings in the other
applied prior art to overcome the above-noted deficiency of Eldering.
Accordingly, for the same reasons discussed for claims 134 and 171, we do
not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of the remaining claims over
Eldering in combination with the other applied prior art.
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Application 13/188,620
In summary:
134, 136-139, 102(e)
143,146, 148-
150,154, 171-
175, 177-182
140-142, 151- 103(a)
153, 156, 157,
159,161, 163-
169
144,176 103(a)
145, 155 103(a)
158, 160, 162, 103(a)
170
Overall
Outcome
CONCLUSION
Eldering 134, 136-139,
143,146, 148-
150,154, 171-
175, 177-182
Eldering, 140-142, 151-
Riedl 153, 156, 157,
159,161, 163-
169
Eldering, 144,176
Eldering 2
Eldering, 145, 155
Ozer
Eldering, 158, 160, 162,
Riedl, 170
Tokorotani
134, 136-146,
148-182
REVERSED
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