Ex Parte Brooks et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 28, 201813855572 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 28, 2018) Copy Citation 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. 13/855,572 04/02/2013 David A. Brooks RSW920120172US1 8026 75949 7590 IBM CORPORATION C/O: Fabian Vancott 215 South State Street Suite 1200 Salt Lake City, UT 84111 EXAMINER DAYE, CHELCIE L ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2161 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/30/2018 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): patents @ fabianvancott.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DAVID A. BROOKS, MIGUEL A. ESTRADA, ETHAN L. PERRY, THOMAS SCHAECK, and MICHAEL C. WANDERSKI Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 Technology Center 2100 Before THU A. DANG, BARBARA A. BENOIT, and STEVE M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges. DANG, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 10-15, 20-23, and 26—35, which are all of the pending claims. Claims 1—9, 16—19, 24, and 25 were previously canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 A. INVENTION According to Appellants, the claimed invention relates to “calculating a list of activity events for a user’s activity stream based on weights assigned to implicit actions and explicit actions” and “prioritizing the list of activity events in the user’s activity stream based on the weights.” Spec. 13. B. REPRESENTATIVE CLAIM Claim 10 is exemplary: 10. A system for calculating lists of events in activity streams, comprising: a user device comprising a user interface allowing a user to access multiple social network services and multiple product websites; and a social network server in communication with said user device to capture a user’s interactions of multiple resources from said multiple social network services and said multiple product websites, wherein the system follows a resource for the user based on the system identifying an implicit action by the user. C. REJECTIONS 1. Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ruflher et al. (US 2012/0191776 Al, published July 26, 2012), and Xie (US 2014/0019457, published Jan. 16, 2014). 2. Claim 11 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ruflher, Xie, and Hosken (US 6,438,579 Bl, issued Aug. 20, 2002). 3. Claim 12 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ruflher, Xie, Hosken, and Panyam et al. (US 2012/0110080, published May 3, 2012). 2 Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 4. Claims 13—15, 20—23, 26, and 34 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Panyam, Xie, Hosken, and Griffin (US 2014/0025734, published Jan. 23, 2014). 5. Claim 27 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ruffner, Xie, and Spivack (US 2009/0106307 Al, published Apr. 23, 2009). 6. Claim 28 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ruffner, Xie, and Occhino et al. (US 2011/0004692 Al, published Jan. 6, 2011). 7. Claims 29 and 32 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ruffner, Xie, Hosken, Panyam and Spivack. 8. Claims 30, 31, and 33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ruffner, Xie, Hosken, Panyam, and Griffin. 9. Claim 35 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Panyan, Xie, Hosken, Griffin, and Spivack. II. ISSUES The principal issues before us are whether the Examiner erred in finding that: 1. The combination of Ruffner and Xie teaches or suggests a system that “follows a resource for the user based on the system identifying an implicit action by the user.” Claim 10 (emphasis added). 2. The combination of Panyam, Xie, Hosken, and Griffin teaches or suggests calculating “a list of activity events for a user’s activity stream based on weights assigned to implicit actions and explicit actions.” Claims 13 and 21 (emphasis added). 3 Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 III. FINDINGS OF FACT The following Findings of Fact (FF) are shown by a preponderance of the evidence. Ruffner 1. Ruffner discloses a system for recommending to a user a particular context of potential interest, based on detecting an interaction by the user with some item of web content. 112. Social network services recommend to users individual items of web content (e.g., news stories) based on explicit or implicit expression of interest by the users. 113. For example, the social network user may explicitly indicate that she is interested in certain topics by checking a box corresponding with topics of interest or the social network service may recommend content based on some implicit expression of interest such as detected content items that a particular user is accessing. Id. In such implicit case, the social network service includes a content server module that operates in conjunction with a web document processing module and a content personalization module to present a user with context recommendations, based on the detection of an interaction with a web document. 124. Xie 2. Xie discloses a system for indexing, ranking, and analyzing web activity. 118. Web activity includes implicit human actions derived by monitoring the update of web content over time and any internet or mobile activities and actions by human or applications. Id. For example, a user can follow a concept in which the user can review the timely flow of content related to the concept, all metadata related therewith, and all relevant web activity related thereto. 122. The web activity is indexed to the concept 4 Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 such that each concept can monitor activity levels, sentiment, trends, web participants and related data sources. Id. Web activity and web events can be intelligently bundled, taking into account historical and other recent web activity, and can be correlated, to create an intelligent and proprietary web activity stream which results in recommendations around people and content, suggestions around new related concepts, discovery, and predictions. 147. For example, based on implied interest in a user’s account such as a Facebook account, a recommendation is made for the user to follow a particular Ticker. | 59. Tickers are “equivalent to labels or programmatic hashtags,” and reflect concepts. 195. Hosken 3. Hosken discloses a system for determining and providing content recommendations, wherein explicit profiling data provided by the user and implicitly derived from referral system processes are processed and stored. Col. 4,11. 46-49. User navigation of presented recommendations and user actions in reviewing and considering media content items are utilized in the refinement of profile data. Col. 5,11. 42-46. In particular, implicit user behaviors are analyzed to identify media content attributes and media content item interests implicitly expressed by the user through browsing activities. Col. 11,11. 13—15. Implicit information gathered from user actions is processed and stored as an addition and refinement of the profile data previously stored. Col. 5,11. 59-62. Recommendations are determined based on Favorite media content items identified by the user, employing the content database and the user profiles tables. Col. 8,11. 38-43. 5 Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 IV. ANALYSIS Claim 10 Although Appellants concede Ruffner discloses following items for a user, Appellants contend “Ruffner only discusses following items for a user in response to exp licit user action.” App. Br. 11. Thus, Appellants contend that Ruffner “does not teach or suggest ‘wherein the system follows a resource for a user based on the system identifying an implicit action by the user’ [as recited in claim 10].” Id. at 11—12. Similarly, although Appellants concede “Xie may suggest that a user follow a concept,” Appellants contend that Xie “only actually follows the concept when explicitly instructed to do so.” Id. at 12. That is, “Xie, like Ruffner, only follows something when explicitly instructed to do so by the user.” Id. We have considered all of Appellants’ arguments and evidence presented. However, we agree with the Examiner’s findings, and find no error with the Examiner’s conclusion that claim 10 would have been obvious over the teachings and suggestions of Ruffner and Xie. As a preliminary matter of claim construction, we give the claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification. See In re Morris, 111 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). While we interpret claims broadly but reasonably in light of the Specification, we nonetheless must not import limitations from the Specification into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Although Appellants contend that both Xie and Ruffner only follow a resource “when explicitly instructed to do so by the user” (App. Br. 12), claim 10 merely requires that the system follow a resource for the user “based on the system identifying an implicit action by the user.” Claim 10. 6 Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 Here, the claim does not preclude following when “explicitly” instructed to do so as long as the following is also based on the system identifying an “implicit” action by the user. That is, claim 10 does not preclude the system identifying an implicit action by the user and then recommending the user to explicitly instruct the following of the resource. Here, as Appellants concede, Ruffher discloses following items for a user. App. Br. 11. Further, the Examiner’s finds, and we agree, “Ruffner clearly discusses the use of implicit actions by the user [for] determining and recommending content of interest to the user.” Ans. 17;FF1. In particular, Ruffher discloses social network services which recommend to users individual items of web content (e.g., news stories) based on explicit or implicit expression of interest by the users. FF 1. Thus, Ruffher teaches and suggests following items for a user based on the user’s implicit actions. Id. Given the broadest, reasonable interpretation of the claims, we find that Ruffher teaches and suggests a system that “follows a resource for the user based on the system identifying an implicit action by the user.” Claim 10. Furthermore, according to the examiner, “Xie was incorporated in order to more specifically teach that the claimed ‘system follow[ing] a resource based on an implicit action.” Ans. 17. That is, Xie discloses that based on implied interest in a user’s account, a recommendation is made for the user to follow a particular resource. Id.; FF 2. Thus, we find no error with the Examiner’s reliance on Xie in combination with Ruffher for teaching and suggesting a system that “follows a resource for the user based on the system identifying an implicit action by the user” as recited in claim 10. Ans. 17. 7 Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 Based on this record, we find no error in the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 10 over Ruffher in combination with Xie. Claim 11 As for claim 11 depending from claim 10, although Appellants concede “Hosken . . . discusses the use and storage of profiling data that includes both implicit and explicit items,” Appellants contend “Hosken does not teach or suggest that the profiling data is stored ‘as implicit actions and explicit actions’as required.” App. Br. 14. According to Appellants, “[njothing teaches or suggests that implicit and explicit profiling data is treated differently or can be categorized by the system as implicit vs. explicit.” Id. However, as the Examiner points out, “the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., categorized) are not recited in the rejected claim(s).” Ans. 19. We agree with the Examiner that claim 11 merely requires storing the user’s interactions “as implicit actions and as explicit actions” in memory. Claim 11. Thus, contrary to Appellants’ contentions (App. Br. 14), the claim does not require that the data “is treated differently” or be “categorized” in the system. Nevertheless, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Hosken teaches gathering implicit level-of-interest information, wherein the implicit information “is processed and stored as an additional and refinement of the profile data previously stored.” Ans. 19; FF 3. In particular, Hosken teaches or at least suggests that data regarding implicit action is stored as “additional” information which is different from the previously stored explicit data. FF 3. Thus, Hosken to teaches and suggests storing the data 8 Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 “as implicit actions [i.e., “additional information”] and as explicit actions [previously stored].” On this record, we find no error with the Examiner’s rejection of claim 11 over Ruffher and Xie, further in view of Hosken. Claim 13 As for claim 13, Appellants similarly contend “[t]he cited references disclose following resources in response to a system suggestion and an explicit user action of user selection or approval” (App. Br. 15), and “do not teach or suggest following a resource for a user based on implicit user actions.” App. Br. 16. However, as discussed above, we find no error with the Examiner’s finding that Xie discloses “the claimed ‘system follow[ing] a resource based on an implicit action.” Ans. 17. That is, Xie discloses that based on implied interest in a user’s account, a recommendation is made for the user to follow a particular resource for the user. Id.', FF 2. Furthermore, we agree with the Examiner’s finding “Hosken teaches storing implicit and explicit ratings data for content items provided by the user.” App. Br. 18; FF 3. That is, in Hosken, implicit information gathered from user actions is processed and stored as an addition and refinement of the profile data for the user. FF 3. Accordingly, on this record, we find no error with the Examiner’s rejection of claim 13 over Xie and Hosken in combination with Panyam and Griffin. Claim 20 With respect to claim 20, Appellants repeat the contention set forth for claim 13 that “[t]he cited references disclose following resource for a user only in response to a system suggestion and an explicit user action” (App. 9 Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 Br. 17). For similarly reasons set forth with respect to claim 13, we also affirm the rejection of claim 20 over the combination of Panyam, Xie, Hosken, and Griffin. Dependent Claim 21 Claim 21 depends from claim 20 and recites “wherein to determine said weights of said explicit actions includes a user reading a profile, said user visiting a community, . . . said user marking a favorite, ... or indicators of higher than average importance.” Claim 21 (emphasis added). That is, claim 21 requires that weights of explicit actions are determined according to merely one of the listed actions. Although Appellants appear to contend that Hosken does not disclose every “explicit” action listed in claim 21 (App. Br. 17—26), Appellants do concede that, for example, “Hosken appears to be discussing assigning a rating or favorite to a resource.” App. Br. 20. That is, Appellants concede that Hosken at least discloses “marking a favorite.” Id. On this record, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred in finding Hosken, in combination with the other references, teaches or at least suggests the contested limitation. Ans. 19—21. Accordingly, we also affirm the rejection of claim 21 over Panyam, Xie, Hosken, and Griffin. Appellants do not provide substantive arguments for the other pending claims. App. Br. 23—24. Thus, we also affirm the rejections of these claims. V. CONCLUSION AND DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 10—15, 20—23, and 26— 35 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 10 Appeal 2017-002647 Application 13/855,572 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 11 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation