Ex Parte Baker et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 18, 2012

09918902 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 18, 2012)

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. 09/918,902 07/31/2001 Daniel Baker 00EC055/79183 2341 24628 7590 09/18/2012 Husch Blackwell LLP Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP Welsh & Katz 120 S RIVERSIDE PLAZA 22ND FLOOR CHICAGO, IL 60606 EXAMINER AL AUBAIDI, RASHA S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2614 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/18/2012 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 DANIEL BAKER, ANTHONY J. DEZONNO, and CRAIG R. SHAMBAUGH ____________ Appeal 2011-004193 Application 09/918,902 Technology Center 2600 ____________ Before JONI Y. CHANG, GLENN J. PERRY, and RAMA G. ELLURU, Administrative Patent Judges. ELLURU, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-004193 Application 09/918,902 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a final rejection of all pending claims, 1-4, 6-25, and 27-33. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. The Invention The invention relates to transaction processing systems. (Spec. 1). More specifically, the claimed subject matter covers a method for distributing customer contacts to a transaction processing entity of a transaction processing system. (Id. at 2). The claimed methods include determining a media type for a customer contact in the transaction processing system and finding a transaction processing entity that is capable of handling the media type and using a transaction routing table to perform the distribution of customer contacts. (Id.). A further understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary claims 1 and 13, which are reproduced below. Claims 1 and 13 are exemplary: 1. A method for distributing customer contacts to a selected one of a plurality of transaction processing entities each capable of handling a plurality of media types in a transaction processing system, such method comprising: determining a media type for a customer contact in the transaction processing system, the media type determined by the access channel of the customer contact; identifying the media type as exclusive or nonexclusive; finding a transaction processing entity that is capable of handling the media type; Appeal 2011-004193 Application 09/918,902 3 establishing a table of a predetermined maximum number of customer contacts of each media type that may be simultaneously handled by each transaction processing entity, and of current customer contact assignments to each transaction entity for each media type; routing the customer contact to a transaction processing entity that is capable of handling the media type as a current customer contact if the contact will not exceed the maximum number of media type that the transaction processing entity may handle, and permitting no further customer contacts for the duration of said current customer contact by said transaction processing entity when said media type is exclusive while routing other non-exclusive customer contacts to the transaction processing entity during the current customer contact. 13. A method for distributing customer contacts to a selected one of a plurality of transaction processing entities each capable of handling a plurality of media types in a transaction processing system, such method comprising: determining a media type for a customer contact in the transaction processing system, the media type determined by the access channel of the customer contact; identifying the media type as exclusive or nonexclusive; preparing a transaction routing table of transaction processing entities based on media types including whether the media types are exclusive or nonexclusive, a maximum number of customer contacts of each media type that each transaction processing entity may handle simultaneously; searching the transaction routing table for a transaction processing entity that is capable of handling the media type; determining a metric of how many customer contacts of the media type have been assigned to the transaction processing entity; and Appeal 2011-004193 Application 09/918,902 4 comparing the metric to the maximum number of customer contacts of the media type that the transaction processing entity may handle simultaneously, and when the metric exceeds the threshold, preferentially routing other customer contacts to other transaction processing entities; and routing the customer contact to the transaction processing entity that is capable of handling the media type as a current customer contact and permitting no further customer contact of the exclusion exclusive media type for the duration of the current customer contact while routing other non-exclusive customer contacts to the transaction processing entity during the current customer contact so long as the metric does not exceed the threshold. (App. Br. 19, 21 (Claims Appendix)). Prior Art The Examiner relies upon the following references: Price US 6,389,132 B1 May 14, 2002 Busey US 6,665,395 B1 Dec. 16, 2003 Crowther US 6,771,765 B1 Aug. 3, 2004 Mears US 7,092,509 B1 Aug. 15, 2006 Rejections on Appeal 1. Claims 1-4, 6-25, and 27-33 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Busey, Crowther, and Mears. (Ans. 3-8). 2. Claims 1-4, 6-25, and 27-33 also were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Busey, Crowther, Price, and Mears. (Ans. 8-13). ISSUES 1. Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1-4, 6-20, 22-25, and 27-33 as being obvious because the combination of cited references does not Appeal 2011-004193 Application 09/918,902 5 teach or suggest the recited “permitting no further customer contacts for the duration of said current customer contact by said transaction processing entity when said media type is exclusive while routing other non-exclusive customer contacts to the transaction processing entity during the current customer contact?” In particular, this issue turns on whether Crowther teaches away from this claim limitation. 2. Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1-4, 6-25, and 27-33 as being obvious because the combination of cited references does not teach or suggest the recited “determining a media type for a customer contact … media type determined by the access channel of the customer contact… identifying the media type as exclusive or nonexclusive”? (Emphasis added). ANALYSIS Obviousness Rejection: Claims 1-4, 6-20, 22-25, and 27-33 Appellants argue that the cited references do not teach or suggest the claimed “permitting no further customer contact of the exclusive media type for the duration of said current customer contact … when said media type is exclusive while routing other non-exclusive customer contacts to the transaction processing entity during the current customer contact,” as recited in claims 1 and 131. (App. Br. 10). More specifically, Appellants argue that these claims require that “no additional exclusive media type contact is routed to the processing entity (e.g., agent) during the current exclusive media type contact but that the non-exclusive media type contacts may still be routed to the entity during that contact.” (Id.). 1 Independent claim 22 includes similar subject matter. (App. Br. 23 (Claims Appendix)). Appeal 2011-004193 Application 09/918,902 6 The Examiner interprets this limitation as requiring that when an agent is busy, for example, with a telephone call (i.e., excusive media contact), no other telephone call will be routed to the agent but e-mail and fax (i.e., non-exclusive media contacts) may be routed to the agent. (Ans. 13-14). With respect to the interpretation, which permits no further customer contacts of the exclusive media type for the duration of said current customer contact when said current media type is exclusive, the Examiner finds that this feature is well known in the art. (Id. at 14). The Examiner first provides the example that if an agent in an ACD is busy with a voice/telephone call, the agent would be considered busy/unavailable to handle other voice/telephone calls. (Id.). In addition, the Examiner relies on Crowther to teach this limitation. The Examiner finds that the claimed “exclusive media type” reads on Crowther’s highest interruptibility level (such as voice or phone calls), which cannot be interrupted, and the claimed “non-exclusive media type” reads on lower interruptibility levels (such as e- mail or fax), which can be interrupted by higher/highest interruptibility level request such as voice call. (Ans. 14 (citing Crowther, col. 7, ll. 36-46; col. 8, ll. 14-20); see also Crowther col. 2, ll. 48-52; col. 5, ll. 10-17)). With respect to the interpretation which requires that an exclusive media type, such as voice calls, may be interrupted by other non-exclusive media type contacts such as e-mails, the Examiner relies on Price. (Ans. 15- 16 (citing Price col. 4, ll. 25-45; col. 7, ll. 30-35)). Price, according to the Examiner, teaches multi-tasking in a call center wherein a multi-tasking agent who is handling a customer voice call session can still view or respond to an e-mail or a text message. (Id.). The Examiner therefore finds that applying the teachings of Price “(if desired)” into the combination of Busey Appeal 2011-004193 Application 09/918,902 7 and Crowther teaches allowing an agent who is handling a voice call (i.e., exclusive media contact) to receive and handle other tasks such as off-line messages and e-mails (i.e., non-exclusive media contact). (Id. at 15). Appellants challenge this finding by noting that the highest level of priority in Crowther prevents all further assignment of lower priority contacts, and thus, cannot be the claimed exclusive type, which can be interrupted by non-exclusive media types. (App. Br. 11; Reply Br. 3). More specifically, Appellants argue that Crowther teaches away from the claimed feature of continuing to assign non-exclusive types when the media type of the current customer contact is “exclusive” because Crowther does not allow any interruption of the highest interruptibility level. (Reply Br. 3). We agree. “‘A reference may be said to teach away when a person of ordinary skill, upon reading the reference, would be discouraged from following the path set out in the reference, or would be led in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the applicant.’” Ricoh Co., Ltd. v. Quanta Computer, Inc., 550 F.3d 1325, 1332 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 990 (Fed. Cir. 2006)). Here, Crowther teaches away from the claimed limitation wherein an exclusive media type, such as voice calls, may be interrupted by other non-exclusive media type contacts, such as e-mails. Crowther specifically teaches that “[t]he highest level of interruptibility is defined as level 1 [i.e., the claimed exclusive media type], meaning that requests being handled by agents from skillsets at this level cannot be interrupted by requests at lower level of interruptibility [i.e., the claimed non-exclusive media type].” (Crowther col. 5, ll. 12-16 (emphasis added)). Crowther further teaches “[t]he agent can be interrupted only if a request is Appeal 2011-004193 Application 09/918,902 8 queued in a skillset of higher interruptibility level (and only if this agent is assigned to that skillset). In yet another embodiment, the agent may be interrupted only if a request is queued in a skillset of an equal or higher interruptibility level.” (Crowther col. 7, ll. 40-46). Thus, we conclude that a person of ordinary skill reading Crowther would be led in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the applicant, wherein non- exclusive customer contacts are routed to the transaction processing entity during said current customer contact when said current media type is exclusive, as recited in claims 1, 13, and 22. See Ricoh Co., 550 F.3d at 1332. In sum, we find insufficient support in the record, as discussed above, for the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 13, and 22, and claims 2-4, 6-12, 14-20, 23-25, and 27-33 which depend therefrom (App. Br. 10), as being obvious over the combination of references that includes Crowther. Obviousness Rejection: Claims 1-4, 6-25, and 27-33 Appellants further argue that the cited references do not teach or suggest the claimed “determining a media type for a customer contact … media type determined by the access channel of the customer contact… identifying the media type as exclusive or nonexclusive,” as recited in all of the pending claims. (App. Br. 12-13) (emphasis added). Appellants note that the application defines “media type” as referring to the source or access channel over which the calls is processed and that the claims clarify this meaning by reciting that media type is determined by the access channel of the customer contact. (Id. at 13 (citing Spec. 4, ll. 16-18)). We are persuaded of error in the Examiner’s findings. Appeal 2011-004193 Application 09/918,902 9 The Examiner finds that the skillsets of an agent, as Crowther teaches, is associated with the claimed “media type” because determining the skills of a particular agent helps to determine what media type this agent is capable of handling, such as voice calls, e-mails, text or chat. (Ans. 17-18). Thus, according to the Examiner, once the media type is identified in Crowther, the agent with the best or matching skillsets will be assigned to service this media type (such as accepting voice calls or answering e-mails). (Id. at 19). The Examiner’s rationale is that there is no difference between identifying the media type first and then matching the capable agent skillset, as claimed, and identifying the agent skillset first and then assigning the appropriate media type to that skillset, as taught by Crowther. (Id. at 18). Appellants argue, however, that Crowther does not disclose the claimed feature of determining media types and identifying them as exclusive or non-exclusive where media type is “defined by access channel.” (Reply Br. 5). According to Appellants, the claimed media type based on access channel is a completely different concept from agent skillsets. (Id. at 4). We agree that the claims require determining media type of a customer contact “by the access channel of the customer contact.” (Emphasis added). The Examiner’s stated rationale is that Crowther teaches determining media type based on matching capable agent skillsets to media types. (Ans. 18). The Examiner, however, has not pointed to any disclosure in Crowther that teaches determining a media type based on the access channel of the customer contact as claimed, or explained how this limitation is well known by persons of ordinary skill in the prior art. Appeal 2011-004193 Application 09/918,902 10 In sum, we find insufficient support in the record, as discussed above, for the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-4, 6-25, and 27-33 as being obvious over the combination of references that includes Crowther. Additional Arguments Because we have reached the merits of the issues discussed above, we do not address any remaining arguments raised by Appellants. However, we note that while Busey teaches assigning a number of endpoints (i.e., communication line over which information can be exchanged with a single customer) to an agent, the Examiner has not pointed to any disclosure teaching “determining a metric of how many customer contacts of the media type have been assigned to the transaction processing entity” as claimed. (Emphasis added). (See Ans. 19-20 (citing Busey, col. 11, ll. 15-22)). DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-4, 6-25, and 27-33 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is REVERSED. REVERSED msc