Ex Parte Antell

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 20, 2017

14492859 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 20, 2017)

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. 14/492,859 09/22/2014 BOB ANTETE 86291.1511 6720 7590 BAKER & HOSTETLER LLP WASHINGTON SQUARE, SUITE 1100 1050 CONNECTICUT AVE. N.W. WASHINGTON, DC 20036-5304 EXAMINER RAHMAN, SM AZIZUR ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2458 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/24/2017 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): eofficemonitor@bakerlaw.com edervis @bakerlaw.com patents @ bakerlaw. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BOB ANTELL Appeal 2017-005581 Application 14/492,8591 Technology Center 2400 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., NORMAN H. BEAMER, and ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8—11, and 13—15. We have jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 Appellant identifies Your View Ltd. as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 1.) Appeal 2017-005581 Application 14/492,859 THE INVENTION Appellant’s disclosed and claimed invention is directed to validating votes sent responsive to events occurring in an interactive broadcast video. (Spec. 11.) Claims 1 and 13—15 are independent. Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal: 1. A computer-implemented method of validating an electronic vote, adapted to be executed as a set of instructions by a processor, the method comprising: receiving at a network element via a communication network a received vote message comprising a sender identifier, vote data and a timestamp; determining from the timestamp that the received vote message was received in a time window relating to an event, wherein the start of the time window relating to the event is defined by the time of broadcast of additional information regarding the event; accessing stored vote messages received at the network element during a previous time window relating to the event and stored at a data storage node, wherein the start of the previous time window relating to the event is defined by the first time of broadcast of the event; validating the received vote message by matching the sender identifier to a stored sender identifier in one of the stored vote messages, marking only a complete, matched sequence of vote messages for the sender identifier as validated; storing the received vote message at the data storage node; repeating the receiving, determining, accessing and storing to obtain a plurality of validated sequences of vote messages; and generating statistics from the vote data in the plurality of validated sequences of vote messages. App. Br. 9 (Claims Appendix). 2 Appeal 2017-005581 Application 14/492,859 REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8—11, and 13—15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Wald (US 2003/0094489 Al, pub. May 22, 2003) and Hotto et al (US 2007/0241190 Al, pub. Oct. 18, 2007) (hereinafter “Hotto”). (Final Act. 3.) ISSUE ON APPEAL Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following dispositive issue:2 Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Wald and Hotto teaches or suggests the independent claim 1 limitation, “validating the received vote message by matching the sender identifier to a stored sender identifier in one of the stored vote messages, marking only a complete, matched sequence of vote messages for the sender identifier as validated,” and the commensurate limitations recited in independent claims 13—15. (App. Br. 4-8.) ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s arguments the Examiner erred. We disagree with Appellant’s arguments, and we adopt as our own (1) the pertinent findings and reasons set forth by 2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the positions of the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed July 27, 2016) (herein, “App. Br.”); the Reply Brief (filed Feb. 15, 2017) (herein, “Reply Br.”); the Final Office Action (mailed Nov. 30, 2015) (herein, “Final Act.”); and the Examiner’s Answer (mailed Dec. 15, 2016) (herein, “Ans.”) for the respective details. 3 Appeal 2017-005581 Application 14/492,859 the Examiner in the Action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2—9) and (2) the corresponding findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief. (Ans. 2—5.) We concur with the applicable conclusions reached by the Examiner, and emphasize the following. In finding the combination of Wald and Hotto teaches or suggests the claim limitations at issue, the Examiner relies on the disclosure in Hotto of saving user input as voting data and authenticating each voter’s information by comparing it to stored voter data comprising voter biometric information, and generating a voting record identifier and considering the vote complete after prioritizing votes to handle simultaneous requests. (Ans. 3^4; Hotto 1139, 63, 77—80, Fig. 4.) The Examiner also relies on the disclosure of Wald of accessing stored vote messages received during a previous time window. (Ans. 4; Wald H 62.) Appellant argues that “Hotto does not address or solve the problem that this invention addresses” (App. Br. 6) and more specifically argues Examiner error because Hotto, “does not say anything about matching the sender identifier to a stored sender identifier in a previously stored voter message. This paragraph instead compares voter information with previously stored voter, not vote, information.” (App. Br. 7, citing Hotto 1 39.) We are not persuaded of error. Here, the claimed “validating” encompasses the combination of Hotto and Wald, when Hotto’s biometric information is incorporated into Wald’s vote messages, and the resulting incoming votes are validated under Hotto’s method to prioritize “multiple simultaneous vote requests.” (Ans. 4.) 4 Appeal 2017-005581 Application 14/492,859 Appellant additionally argues that “the Examiner’s reading of paragraph [0039] of Hotto, which is crucial to the rejection, arises more from hindsight knowledge of appellant’s invention than what Hotto actually discloses.” (Reply Br. 4; see also App. Br. 7—8.) Appellant contends that “apart from hindsight knowledge of appellant’s invention, a person of ordinary skill in the art would not have seen a reason to ‘improve’ Wald and would not have had a reason to look to Hotto to do so.” (Reply Br. 4.) We are not persuaded by this argument. Here the Examiner finds the following motivation to combine: once the ballot selections are received from voters, the authentication of the voters will be performed, a prioritization will be performed if multiple simultaneous vote requests are received and a sequence identifier will be assigned, and finally a voting record identifier will be generated and the vote will be considered to be complete. (Ans. 4.) We conclude the Examiner’s articulated reasoning provides a rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness. See KSRInt’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that accounting for the timing of incoming votes is an issue arising in voting systems such as Wald and Hotto (see, for example Wald ^fl[ 34, 36; Hotto ]Hf 63), and is not hindsight motivation derived from Appellant’s disclosure. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1, as well as independent claims 13—15 not separately argued, and all dependent claims not separately argued. See App. Br. 4—8. 5 Appeal 2017-005581 Application 14/492,859 DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8—11, and 13—15 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 6