Duy Nguyen et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Nov 14, 2019

15186421 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Nov. 14, 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.
15/186,421 06/17/2016 Duy Nguyen 16Clklion-NP 2190
38617 7590 11/14/2019
John D. Tran
Rhema Law Group, P.C.
1 Park Plaza, Suite 600
Irvine, CA 92614
EXAMINER
CHOI, PETER H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3622
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/14/2019 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):
ipdocket@rhemalaw.com
jdt@rhemalaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte DUY NGUYEN and VU HUY TRAN
____________

Appeal 2018-002560
Application 15/186,421
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
KENNETH G. SCHOPFER, Administrative Patent Judges.

MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42. Our decision references Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.,”
filed September 5, 2017) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed January 8,
2018), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed November 3, 2017) and
Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed April 5, 2017). Appellant
identifies the inventors, Duy Nguyen and Vu Huy Tran, as the real parties in
interest. Appeal Br. 3.
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CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellant describes that the disclosure “relates to improvements to
internet infrastructure efficiency, and more particularly to improvements in
hardware utilization and efficiency for campaign generation, optimization,
and targeting” (Spec. ¶ 2).
Claims 1, 8, and 15 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below with bracketed notations added, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. A method of campaign optimization comprising:
[(a)] crawling internet websites including an advertiser
website and a publisher website;
[(b)] identifying a resource article from the internet
websites, the resource article including a title, an image, and
body content;
[(c)] generating a resource article topic model of the
body content of the resource article;
[(d)] identifying a current article being read by a user;
[(e)] generating a current article topic model for the
current article;
[(f)] calculating a semantic score by measuring a
similarity between the resource article topic model and the
current article topic model;
[(g)] calculating a reader score based on a click history
of the user and a browsing history of the user;
[(h)] calculating a traffic score based on a demographic
relationship between the current article and the resource article;
and
[(i)] recommending the resource article to the user based
on the semantic score, the reader score, and the traffic score
indicating the user will select the resource article.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to a
judicial exception without significantly more.
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Claims 1–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as failing to
comply with the written description requirement.
Claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, and 19 are rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Chang et al.
(US 2015/0106156 A1, published Apr. 16, 2015) (“Chang”), Tsai et al.
(US 2015/0347593 A1, published Dec. 3, 2015) (“Tsai”), and Reed, Jr. et al.
(US 2009/0132953 A1, published May 21, 2009) (“Reed”).
Claims 4, 11, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Chang, Tsai, Reed, and King et al. (US 2011/0043652 A1,
published Feb. 24, 2011) (“King”).
Claims 7, 14, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Chang, Tsai, Reed, and Singolda et al.
(US 2010/0293048 A1, published Nov. 18, 2010) (“Singolda”).
ANALYSIS
Patent-Ineligible Subject Matter
Appellant argues the pending claims as a group (Appeal Br. 4–8). We
select independent claim 1 as representative. The remaining claims stand or
fall with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Under 35 U.S.C. § 101, an invention is patent eligible if it claims a
“new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.”
35 U.S.C. § 101. The Supreme Court, however, has long interpreted § 101
to include an implicit exception: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and
abstract ideas” are not patentable. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S.
208, 216 (2014).
The Supreme Court, in Alice, reiterated the two-step framework
previously set forth in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus
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Laboratories, Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012), “for distinguishing patents that claim
laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that claim
patent-eligible applications of those concepts.” Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 217.
The first step in that analysis is to “determine whether the claims at issue are
directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts.” Id. If the claims are not
directed to a patent-ineligible concept, e.g., an abstract idea, the inquiry
ends. Otherwise, the inquiry proceeds to the second step where the elements
of the claims are considered “individually and ‘as an ordered combination’”
to determine whether there are additional elements that “‘transform the
nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible application.” Id. (quoting Mayo,
566 U.S. at 79, 78). This is “a search for an ‘inventive concept’ — i.e., an
element or combination of elements that is ‘sufficient to ensure that the
patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the
[ineligible concept] itself.’” Id. at 217–18 (alteration in original).
In rejecting the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the Examiner
determined that the claims are directed to “the abstract idea of a campaign
optimization system” (Final Act. 2). Focusing specifically on independent
claims 1, 8, and 15, the Examiner determined that “[t]he steps that describe
articles on [an] advertiser’s website[ ] describe a concept related to using
advertising as an exchange”; that “recommending these advertising articles
to a user describes a concept related to creating a contractual relationship”;
and that “the steps of ‘calculating a reader score based on a click history of
the user and a browsing history of the user’” and “‘calculating a traffic score
based on a demographic relationship between the current article and the
resource article’ both describe concepts related to calculating values” —
concepts that the Examiner concluded are similar to other concepts that
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courts have held abstract (id. at 3–4). The Examiner also determined that the
claims do not include additional elements or a combination of elements
sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself (id.
at 4–7).
After Appellant’s briefs were filed, and the Examiner’s Answer
mailed, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) published
revised guidance for use by USPTO personnel in evaluating subject matter
eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. 2019 REVISED PATENT SUBJECT MATTER
ELIGIBILITY GUIDANCE, 84 Fed. Reg. 50, 57 (Jan. 7, 2019) (the “2019
Revised Guidance”). That guidance revised the USPTO’s examination
procedure with respect to the first step of the Mayo/Alice framework by
(1) “[p]roviding groupings of subject matter that [are] considered an abstract
idea”; and (2) clarifying that a claim is not “directed to” a judicial exception
if the judicial exception is integrated into a practical application of that
exception. Id. at 50. The 2019 Revised Guidance, by its terms, applies to all
applications, and to all patents resulting from applications, filed before, on,
or after January 7, 2019. Id.
Step One of the Mayo/Alice Framework (2019 Revised Guidance, Step 2A)
The first step in the Mayo/Alice framework, as mentioned above, is to
determine whether the claims at issue are “directed to” a patent-ineligible
concept, e.g., an abstract idea. Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 217. This first step,
as set forth in the 2019 Revised Guidance (i.e., Step 2A), is a two-prong test;
in Step 2A, Prong One, we look to whether the claim recites a judicial
exception, e.g., one of the following three groupings of abstract ideas:
(1) mathematical concepts; (2) certain methods of organizing human
activity, e.g., fundamental economic principles or practices, commercial or
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legal interactions; and (3) mental processes. 2019 Revised Guidance,
84 Fed. Reg. at 54. If so, we next consider whether the claim includes
additional elements, beyond the judicial exception, that “integrate the
[judicial] exception into a practical application,” i.e., that apply, rely on, or
use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the
judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed
to monopolize the judicial exception (“Step 2A, Prong Two”). Id. at 54–55.
Only if the claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not integrate
that exception into a practical application do we conclude that the claim is
“directed to” the judicial exception, e.g., an abstract idea.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner
erred in determining that claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea (Appeal
Br. 12–18). The Federal Circuit has explained that “the ‘directed to’ inquiry
applies a stage-one filter to claims, considered in light of the specification,
based on whether ‘their character as a whole is directed to excluded subject
matter.’” Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1335 (Fed. Cir.
2016) (quoting Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc., 790 F.3d
1343, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015)). It asks whether the focus of the claims is on a
specific improvement in relevant technology or on a process that itself
qualifies as an “abstract idea” for which computers are invoked merely as a
tool. See id. at 1335–36. Here, it is clear from the Specification (including
the claim language) that the claims focus on an abstract idea, and not on any
improvement to technology and/or a technical field.
The Specification is entitled “CAMPAIGN OPTIMIZATION
SYSTEM,” and states that the disclosure relates, in particular, “to
improvements in hardware utilization and efficiency for campaign
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generation, optimization, and targeting” (Spec. ¶ 2). The Specification
describes, in the Background section, that the body of information content
available on the Web is becoming larger and more diversified in nature with
each passing day, and that accompanying this explosive growth is the “ever
increasing use of advertising material on practically any content which a
user can access” (id. ¶ 4). According to the Specification, this large body of
information can be problematic in the sense that it reduces the “ability of
users to meaningfully connect and requir[es] ever greater computing
resources”; in this environment, advertisers and businesses also are forced to
increase their budgets when internet marketing campaigns are less than
effective (id. ¶ 5). The Specification describes that the “current model
connecting users over the internet places large amounts of irrelevant data
before users . . . [and] relies heavily on expansive and expensive computing
overhead” (id. ¶ 6). And, although “[s]olutions have been long sought,”
there “remains a considerable need for devices and methods that can
decrease computing overhead, advertising budget requirements, and content
irrelevancy” (id. ¶ 7).
The claimed invention is ostensibly intended to address these
shortcomings by providing a campaign optimization system and method that
reduces computing overhead and advertising budget requirements, while
improving content relevancy (id. ¶ 8). Consistent with this disclosure,
claim 1 recites a method of campaign optimization comprising:
(1) identifying a resource article from an advertiser or publisher website and
generating a topic model of the body content of the resource article, i.e.,
“crawling internet websites including an advertiser website and a publisher
website”; “identifying a resource article from the internet websites, the
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resource article including a title, an image, and body content”; and
“generating a resource article topic model of the body content of the
resource article” (steps (a)–(c)); (2) identifying a current article being read
by a user and generating a topic model for the current article,
i.e., “identifying a current article being read by a user” and “generating a
current article topic model for the current article” (steps (d) and (e));
(3) calculating a semantic score based on the similarity between the resource
article topic model and the current article topic model, a reader score based
on the user’s click and browsing histories, and a traffic score based on the
demographic relationship between the current and resource articles, i.e.,
“calculating a semantic score by measuring a similarity between the resource
article topic model and the current article topic model”; “calculating a reader
score based on a click history of the user and a browsing history of the user”;
and “calculating a traffic score based on a demographic relationship between
the current article and the resource article” (steps (f)–(h)); and
(4) recommending the resource article to the user based on the calculated
scores indicating the user will select the resource article, i.e.,
“recommending the resource article to the user based on the semantic score,
the reader score, and the traffic score indicating the user will select the
resource article” (step (i)). These limitations, when given their broadest
reasonable interpretation, recite (1) collecting information, i.e., a current
article and a resource article; (2) analyzing the information, i.e., generating
topic models for the current and resource articles and calculating a semantic
score based on the similarity between the topic models, a reader score based
on the user’s click and browsing histories, and a traffic score based on the
demographic relationship between the current and resource articles; and
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(3) presenting the results of the collection and analysis, i.e., recommending
the resource article, e.g., displaying a “rendered and formatted version” of
the recommended article, which may be an advertisement (Spec. ¶¶ 54, 68),
to the user based on the calculated scores indicating the user will select the
resource article. Simply put, claim 1 recites a method of targeting
content/advertising to a user, i.e., a commercial interaction, which is a
method of organizing human activity and, therefore, an abstract idea. See
2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52 (describing “[c]ertain methods
of organizing human activity” as including “commercial or legal interactions
(including . . . advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors”)).
The Federal Circuit has held similar concepts abstract. For example,
in Bridge and Post, Inc. v. Verizon Communications, Inc., Appeal No. 2018-
1697, 2019 WL 2896449, at *4 (Fed. Cir. July 5, 2019), the Federal Circuit
held that abstract ideas include tracking a user’s computer network activity
and using information gained about the user to deliver targeted media, such
as advertisements. See also, e.g., Affinity Labs of Tex., LLC v. Amazon.com
Inc., 838 F.3d 1266, 1271 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (customizing a user interface to
have targeted advertising based on user information); Intellectual Ventures I
LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2015)
(tailoring information presented to a user based on particular information);
Morsa v. Facebook, Inc., 77 F. Supp. 3d 1007, 1013 (C.D. Cal. 2014), aff’d,
622 F. App’x 915 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (concluding that targeting advertisements
to certain consumers is no more than an abstract idea).
Having concluded that claim 1 recites a judicial exception, i.e., an
abstract idea (Step 2A, Prong One), we next consider whether the claim
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recites additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a
practical application (Step 2A, Prong Two). It does not.
The only additional elements recited in claim 1, beyond the abstract
idea, are the third party internet websites, i.e., an “advertiser website” and a
“publisher website,” from which a resource article is identified. We find no
indication in the Specification, nor does Appellant direct us to any
indication, that the operations recited in claim 1 require any specialized
computer hardware or other inventive computer components, i.e., a
particular machine, invoke any assertedly inventive programming, or that the
claimed invention is implemented using other than generic computer
components to perform generic computer functions. See DDR Holdings,
LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (“[A]fter
Alice, there can remain no doubt: recitation of generic computer limitations
does not make an otherwise ineligible claim patent-eligible.”).
We also find no indication in the Specification that the claimed
invention effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a
different state or thing. Nor do we find anything of record, short of attorney
argument, that attributes an improvement in technology and/or a technical
field to the claimed invention or that otherwise indicates that the claimed
invention integrates the abstract idea into a “practical application,” as that
phrase is used in the 2019 Revised Guidance.2

2 The 2019 Revised Guidance references the MANUAL OF PATENT
EXAMINING PROCEDURE (“MPEP”) § 2106.05(a)–(c) and (e) in describing
the considerations that are indicative that an additional element or
combination of elements integrates the judicial exception, e.g., the abstract
idea, into a practical application. 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg.
at 55. If the recited judicial exception is integrated into a practical
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Appellant argues that “the claims are directed to specific asserted
improvements in computer capabilities as evidenced by the intrinsic
evidence of Specification paragraph [0170]” (Appeal Br. 12; see also Reply
Br. 4–7). But, that argument is not persuasive at least because it is not
commensurate with the claim language.
Paragraph 170 describes that “the campaign service architecture,
including the deliverer block, the matcher block, the collector block, each of
their sub-components, and the databases, has been discovered to provide
multiple improvements to the backend technologies enabling internet
connectivity.” And paragraph 170 explains that “[t]hese improvements
result directly from the highly discriminating extraction techniques of the
collector block, the accurate and highly inclusive matching techniques of the
matcher block, the uniform delivery of the deliverer block, and their
combination” and that “[a]s such, storage requirements, processing
overhead, delay times, click-conversion rates, and reader consumption times
are significantly improved.”
Appellant cautions that paragraph 170 should not be read in isolation,
and points to Figure 5 and paragraphs 93 and 96 of the Specification as
further describing the extraction techniques of the collector block and its
sub-components (Appeal Br. 13). Appellant asserts that “the use of an
extracted body to identify a resource article and to generate a resource article
topic model are specifically claimed, as illustrated by claim 1” (id. at 14).
Yet, there is no recitation in claim 1 (or, for that matter, in either of
independent claims 8 and 15) of the extraction techniques that allegedly

application, as determined under one or more of these MPEP sections, the
claim is not “directed to” the judicial exception.
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provide the improvements in computer capabilities. Instead, claim 1 merely
recites “identifying a resource article from the internet websites, the resource
article including a title, an image, and body content” and “generating a
resource article topic model of the body content of the resource article”
without any technical details regarding how resource article, including the
title, image, and body content are identified, or how the resource article topic
model of the body content of the resource article is generated. Appellant, by
its argument, suggests such details exist, but those details are not reflected in
the claim. Instead, “the claim language here provides only a result-oriented
solution, with insufficient detail for how a computer accomplishes it. Our
law demands more.” Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Fin. Corp.,
850 F.3d 1332, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2017).
Appellant further maintains that claim 1 is patent eligible because it
poses no risk of preemption (Appeal Br. 14–15). But, that argument is
similarly unpersuasive of Examiner error.
There is no dispute that the Supreme Court has described “the concern
that drives [the exclusion of abstract ideas from patent-eligible subject
matter] as one of pre-emption,” Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 216. But,
characterizing preemption as a driving concern for patent eligibility is not
the same as characterizing preemption as the sole test for patent eligibility.
“The Supreme Court has made clear that the principle of preemption is the
basis for the judicial exceptions to patentability” and “[f]or this reason,
questions on preemption are inherent in and resolved by the § 101 analysis.”
Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371, 1379 (Fed. Cir.
2015) (citing Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 216). “[P]reemption may signal
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patent ineligible subject matter, [but] the absence of complete preemption
does not demonstrate patent eligibility.” Id.
Appellant further “urge[s] the application of Enfish and McRO,”3 as
representing “current court precedent in light of Alice and Mayo” (Appeal
Br. 18; see also Reply Br. 7–8). Yet, we can find no parallel between
claim 1 and the claims at issue in either Enfish or McRO. Nor, for that
matter, has Appellant explained how the holdings in Enfish and McRO
impact the present analysis under the Mayo/Alice framework.
The claims at issue in Enfish were directed to a specific type of data
structure, i.e., a self-referential table for a computer database, designed to
improve the way a computer carries out its basic functions of storing and
retrieving data. Enfish, 822 F.3d at 1335–36. There, in rejecting a § 101
challenge, the Federal Circuit held that “the plain focus of the claims is on
an improvement to computer functionality itself, not on economic or other
tasks for which a computer is used in its ordinary capacity.” Id. at 1336.
Similarly, in McRO, the Federal Circuit concluded that the claim,
when considered as a whole, is directed to a “technological improvement
over the existing, manual 3–D animation techniques” and uses “limited rules
in a process specifically designed to achieve an improved technological
result in conventional industry practice.” McRO, 837 F.3d at 1316.
Specifically, the Federal Circuit found that the claimed rules allow
“computers to produce ‘accurate and realistic lip synchronization and facial
expressions in animated characters’ that previously could only be produced
by human animators,” and that the rules are “limiting in that they define

3 McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am., Inc., 837 F.3d 1299 (Fed. Cir.
2016).
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morph weight sets as a function of the timing of phoneme sub-sequences.”
Id. at 1313.
Appellant does not point to anything in claim 1 that resembles the
inventive self-referential data structure at issue in Enfish. Nor has Appellant
identified any technological improvement analogous to that of McRO.
We conclude, for the reasons outlined above, that claim 1 recites a
method of organizing human activity, i.e., an abstract idea, and that the
claim does not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea
into a practical application. Cf. Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 223–24 (“[W]holly
generic computer implementation is not generally the sort of ‘additional
featur[e]’ that provides any ‘practical assurance that the process is more than
a drafting effort designed to monopolize the [abstract idea] itself.’” (quoting
Mayo, 566 U.S. at 77)). Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner that
claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea.
Step Two of the Mayo/Alice Framework (2019 Revised Guidance, Step 2B)
Having determined under step one of the Mayo/Alice framework that
claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea, we next consider under Step 2B of the
2019 Revised Guidance, the second step of the Mayo/Alice framework,
whether claim 1 includes additional elements or a combination of elements
that provides an “inventive concept,” i.e., whether the claim contains
additional elements or a combination of elements that amounts to
“significantly more” than the judicial exception itself. 2019 Revised
Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 56. We conclude that it does not. And Appellant
offers no argument to contrary (see Appeal Br. 18 (“Appellant[ ] respectfully
submit[s] that the claims are directed to patent eligible subject matter and the
second step of the Alice framework need not be addressed. However,
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Appellant[ ] reserve[s] the right to contest the second step of the Alice
framework for subject matter eligibility in any subsequent appeal or
subsequent litigation.”)).
We are not persuaded, on the present record, that the Examiner erred
in rejecting independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Therefore, we
sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, and claims 2–20, which fall with
claim 1.
Written Description
Whether a specification complies with the written description
requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph (now 35 U.S.C. § 112(a)), is
a question of fact and is assessed on a case-by-case basis. See, e.g., Purdue
Pharma L.P. v. Faulding, Inc., 230 F.3d 1320, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (citing
Vas-Cath, Inc. v. Mahurkar, 935 F.2d 1555, 1561 (Fed. Cir. 1991)). The
disclosure, as originally filed, need not literally describe the claimed subject
matter (i.e., using the same terms or in haec verba) in order to satisfy the
written description requirement. But, the specification must convey with
reasonable clarity to those skilled in the art that, as of the filing date, the
inventors were in possession of the claimed invention. See id.
The Examiner maintains here that the Specification fails to provide
adequate written description support for “calculating a semantic score by
measuring a similarity between the resource article topic model and the
current article topic model,” “calculating a reader score based on a click
history of the user and a browsing history of the user,” and “calculating a
traffic score based on a demographic relationship between the current article
and the resource article,” as recited in independent claim 1, and similarly
recited in independent claims 8 and 15 (Final Act. 7–9). The Examiner
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acknowledges that the Specification includes descriptive language regarding
these steps and the desired results of the steps (id. at 8–9). But the Examiner
maintains that the rejection is proper because the Specification does not
disclose “the specific steps or algorithm needed to implement the step of
performing the yield optimization” (id. at 8).
We agree with Appellant that the Specification provides the requisite
written description support such that a person skilled in the art would
understand that the inventors were in possession of the claimed invention,
including the identified limitations, at the time the application was filed
(Appeal Br. 19–23). In other words, we find that the Specification provides
sufficient evidence that the inventors were in possession of the claimed
functionality at the time of filing. See Vasudevan Software, Inc. v.
MicroStrategy, Inc., 782 F.3d 671, 683 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (“The more telling
question is whether the specification shows possession by the inventor of
how [the claimed function] is achieved.”).
In this regard, we agree with Appellant that a person of ordinary skill
in the art, on reviewing the Specification (particularly including
paragraphs 75–78), would understand that the inventors were in possession
of “calculating a semantic score,” e.g., by utilizing techniques such as latent
semantic indexing (Appeal Br. 19–20). We also agree with Appellant that a
disclosure of sufficient detail to demonstrate to a person of ordinary skill in
the art that the inventors possessed the reader score calculation can be found
in paragraphs 80–83 of the Specification, and that sufficient disclosure is
provided in paragraphs 84–87 to demonstrate that the inventors possessed
the traffic score calculation (id. at 21).
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To the extent the Examiner places a dispositive emphasis on whether
Appellant discloses an “algorithm” or “formula,” we note that “possession”
of the invention can be shown in a variety of ways, including “by such
descriptive means as words, structures, figures, diagrams, formulas, etc., that
fully set forth the claimed invention.” Lockwood v. Am. Airlines, Inc.,
107 F.3d 1565, 1572 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claims 1–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as failing to comply with the
written description requirement.
Obviousness
Independent Claims 1, 8, and 15 and Dependent Claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12,
13, 16, 17, and 19
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner erred in
rejecting independent claims 1, 8, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 at least
because Chang, on which the Examiner relies, does not disclose or suggest
“identifying a resource article from the internet websites, the resource article
including a title, an image, and body content,” as recited in claim 1, and
similarly recited in claims 8 and 15 (Appeal Br. 25–27; see also Reply
Br. 16–17).
Chang is directed to a contextual analysis engine that systematically
extracts, analyzes, and organizes digital content stored in an electronic file,
e.g., a webpage, and discloses that content can be extracted using a text
extraction module, which is capable of separating the content to be analyzed
from less meaningful content, such as format specifications and
programming scripts (Chang Abstract). The resulting unstructured corpus of
Appeal 2018-002560
Application 15/186,421

18
plain text can then be passed to a text analytics module capable of generating
a structured categorization of topics included within the content (id.).
In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner cites paragraphs 28, 46, 57, 96, and
101 of Chang, as disclosing the argued limitation (Final Act. 11–12).
However, we agree with Appellant that although Chang discloses extracting
different forms of content and distinguishing parts of a website, we find
nothing in the cited portions of Chang that discloses or suggests “identifying
a resource article from the internet websites, the resource article including a
title, an image, and body content,” as recited in claim 1, and similarly recited
in claims 8 and 15.
Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claims 1, 8, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. For the same reasons, we also do
not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12,
13, 16, 17, and 19. Cf. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992)
(“dependent claims are nonobvious if the independent claims from which
they depend are nonobvious”).
Dependent Claims 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, and 20
The rejections of claims 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, and 20 do not cure the
deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 8, and 15.
Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103
of claims 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, and 20 for the same reasons set forth above with
respect to the independent claims.
Appeal 2018-002560
Application 15/186,421

19
CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–20 101 Eligibility 1–20
1–20 112(a) Written
Description
1–20
1, 2, 3, 5,
6, 8, 9, 10,
12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 19
103 Chang, Tsai, Reed 1, 2, 3, 5,
6, 8, 9, 10,
12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 19
4, 11, 18 103 Chang, Tsai, Reed,
King
4, 11, 18
7, 14, 20 103 Chang, Tsai, Reed,
Singolda
7, 14, 20
Overall
Outcome
1–20

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED