Ex Parte Athelogou et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 28, 2014

11244751 (P.T.A.B. May. 28, 2014)

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.
11/244,751 10/06/2005 Maria Athelogou DEF-003 4865
47713 7590 05/28/2014
IMPERIUM PATENT WORKS
P.O. BOX 607
Pleasanton, CA 94566
EXAMINER
LIN, SHERMAN L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2447
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/28/2014 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte MARIA ATHELOGOU and URSULA BENZ
____________

Appeal 2012-002495
Application 11/244,751
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
BART A. GERSTENBLITH, Administrative Patent Judges.

GERSTENBLITH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Maria Athelogou and Ursula Benz (“Appellants”) appeal under
35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-24. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
Claimed Subject Matter
Claims 1, 8, 15, 18, and 21 are the independent claims on appeal.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter and is reproduced below.
1. A computer-implemented system for progressively
transmitting knowledge between system nodes of a network
structure, comprising:
a plurality of system nodes; and
intelligent interfaces that couple said plurality of system
nodes to each other and that establish communication between
said plurality of system nodes, wherein the intelligent interfaces
transmit object features of cognition structure objects, wherein
the object features comprise knowledge, information and data
depending on a question of one of said plurality of system
nodes, and the object features are transmitted progressively
more faithful to detail from another of the respective system
nodes to the one of the respective system nodes, and wherein
those object features comprising knowledge are transmitted
with higher priority than are those object features comprising
data.
App. Br. 21, Claims App’x.
References
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art references:
Torbey US 4,858,017 Aug. 15, 1989
Baclawski US 6,192,364 B1 Feb. 20, 2001
Bae US 2003/0233403 A1 Dec. 18, 2003
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Rejections
Appellants seek review of the following rejections:
I. Claims 1, 8, 15, 18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as anticipated by Bae;
II. Claims 2, 5-7, 9, and 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Bae and Baclawski;
III. Claims 3, 4, 10, 11, 16, 17, 19, and 21-24 are rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Bae and
Torbey.
SUMMARY OF DECISION
We REVERSE.
OPINION
Rejection I
The Examiner finds that Bae discloses each and every element of
claims 1, 8, 15, 18, and 20. Ans. 5-9. In particular, the Examiner finds that
Bae’s progressive transmission processor 70 shown in Figure 5 and
described in paragraph [0041] teaches the limitation “object features are
transmitted progressively more faithful to detail.” Id. at 6.
Appellants raise several arguments in response to this rejection,
including that “Bae does not disclose that the progressive transmission
processor 70 transmits feature points progressively more faithful to detail
back to the client” (App. Br. 8) because “all of the feature points that are
progressively transmitted by the progressive transmission processor 70 to the
client have the same level of detail” (id. at 9). Appellants assert that Bae’s
“feature points are features within a geographic region being queried by a
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client running a Web map service process. Thus, feature points are
transmitted in Bae based on their calculated priority (estimated relevance to
the user) and not based on their level of detail.” Id. at 9.
In response to Appellants’ argument, the Examiner construes the
phrase “transmitting ‘progressively more faithful to detail’” as “merely any
transfer of data since the gradual receipt of any data progressively builds up
to the complete receipt of the data.” Ans. 18. The Examiner relies upon
Appellants’ Specification as providing an example of an iterative process of
transmitting more detailed data at lower hierarchical levels until a question
has been fully answered. Id. (citing Spec. para. [0043]). The Examiner
finds that “transmitting progressively more faithful to detail may be, but is
not limited to, an iterative process in which the process evaluates whether a
query has been satisfied prior to the complete transfer of the data.” Id.
In their Reply Brief, Appellants contend that the claims “recite that
‘object features are transmitted progressively more faithful to detail’ as
opposed to providing more detail as more generic data is
transmitted. Simply providing more detail as more data is transmitted does
not disclose that object features with less detail are transmitted before
objected features with more detail.” Reply Br. 8.
We do not agree with the Examiner’s construction of the phrase
“transmitted progressively more faithful to detail” as merely any transfer of
data. Although the Examiner is correct that progressive transmission of data
results in progressive buildup of receipt of the data, this is a result of any
progressive transmission. Appellants disclose a system in which a question
by a client system is answered by a server by transmitting information to the
client in an iterative manner where information sent from the server contains
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greater level of detail than in the prior transmission until the question is fully
answered. See Spec. paras. [0011]-[0012] (“The object features comprise
knowledge, information and data, depending on a respective question of a
respective one of the system nodes transmitted progressively more faithful to
detail from another of the respective system nodes to the one of the
respective system nodes. . . . Only when it is determined that further
detailed knowledge, further detailed information and/or further detailed data
is necessary are these items transmitted with a priority corresponding to the
aforementioned order. In this manner, knowledge is progressively
transmitted by more effectively using the transmission channel as compared
with conventional data compression methods.”); see also Spec. para. [0042]
(“It should be noted that the cognition structure objects are arranged within
the triple-SN and transmitted progressively more faithful to detail from a
higher hierarchical level of the triple-SN to a lower hierarchical level of the
triple-SN.”); id. at para. [0043] (“if it is determined in the step S170 that the
question has not been fully answered, the procedure returns to the step S110
and is then again performed at a lower hierarchical level of the triple-SN to
obtain a more detailed cognition structure of the triple-SN to fully answer
the question.”); id. at para. [0044] (same).
As reflected in the discussion of the Specification above, the basis for
the phrase “object features are transmitted progressively more faithful to
detail” is the disclosure of progressive transmission of information with a
greater level detail in each iteration, not accumulation of additional
information at the receiving end which is a result of any progressive
transmission. While limitations are not to be imported from the
Specification, claims are interpreted reasonably in light of the Specification.
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Thus, we are not inclined to accept the Examiner’s construction of the
phrase, which effectively reads the limitation “more faithful to detail” out of
the claim when there is a basis for the limitation in Appellants’
Specification. See Merck & Co. v. Teva Pharm. USA, Inc., 395 F.3d 1364,
1372 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“A claim construction that gives meaning to all the
terms of the claim is preferred over one that does not do so.”).
In Bae’s system the progressive transmission processor prioritizes
blocks of data for selected feature points for transmission before the
remaining data blocks excluding feature points are transmitted. See Bae,
para. [0041]. The Examiner, however, has not asserted or shown that Bae
discloses later transmitted data blocks containing information at a
progressively greater level of detail.
Accordingly, because each of independent claims 1, 8, 15, and 18
includes the phrase “transmitting progressively more faithful to detail” or a
nearly identical phrase, and because claim 20 depends from claim 18, we do
not sustain Rejection I.
Rejections II and III
Independent claim 21 and dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, 16, 17, 19, and
22-24 include the same or nearly identical phrase discussed above. See
App. Br. 21-25, Claims App’x. Because Rejections II and III rely upon Bae
to the same extent as discussed in the context of Rejection I (see Ans. 9-17),
we do not sustain Rejections II and III for the reasons discussed therein.
DECISION
We REVERSE the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-24.
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REVERSED

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