Ex Parte Calo et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 23, 2017

13912058 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 23, 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.
13/912,058 06/06/2013 Seraphin Bernard Calo 0464-011/YOR920120913US1 8688
55459 7590 08/25/2017
PATENT PORTFOLIO BUILDERS, PLLC
P.O. BOX 7999
Fredericksburg, VA 22404
EXAMINER
HU, JENSEN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2169
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/25/2017 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):
Mailroom @ PPBLAW. com
T ripp @ PPBLAW. com
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SERAPHIN BERNARD CALO,
DOUGLAS M. FREIMUTH, RAGHU KIRAN GANTI,
JAMES J. FAN, and FAN YE1
Appeal 2017-005085
Application 13/912,058
Technology Center 2100
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and
IRVIN E. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judges.
BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1—20, all pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We affirm.
1 The Applicant is International Business Machines Corporation. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2017-005085
Application 13/912,058
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER2
According to Appellants, the claims are directed to “data collection in
networked devices.” Spec. 12.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A method for question answering, the method comprising:
receiving a natural language query at an application
running on a computing system;
translating the natural language query into a data request
specification, the data request specification comprising an
identification of types of data to be obtained that are responsive
to the natural language query;
determining data collection requirements in a data capture
system responsive to the data request specification, the data
collection requirements comprising phenomena responsive to the
data request specification, each phenomenon comprising an
event occurring in real time at a given physical location over a
given time duration that is a high level abstraction of raw data to
be collected by the data capture system;
using physical sensors located in a plurality of data
generating networked devices in the data capture system
disposed in the given physical location during the given time
duration to obtain the raw data in real time;
generating the phenomena in the data collection
requirements using the obtained raw data; and
communicating raw data and phenomena responsive to the
data request specification and the natural language query to the
application.
2 Appellants state that the instant appeal is related to US Patent Application
No. 13/912,147 (Appeal 2017-005970). App. Br. 2.
2
Appeal 2017-005085
Application 13/912,058
REFERENCES AND REJECTION3
Claims 1—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over the combination of Srikanth (US 2011/0196852 Al, published Aug. 11,
2011) and Feldman (US 2002/0026278 Al, published Feb. 28, 2002). Final
Act. 3-13.
ANALYSIS
Because Appellants argue claims 1 and 14 together and argue claims
2—13 and 15—20 based on claims 1 and 14, our decision with respect to
claims 1 and 14 is dispositive of this appeal.
Appellants’ arguments (App. Br. 5—14; Reply Br. 2—7) alleging error
in the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 and 14 (Final Act. 3—5) do not
persuade us of error. Appellants’ arguments are best exemplified by the
following:
Therefore, as with Srikanth, Feldman does not disclose the
data collection requirements comprising phenomena responsive
to the data request specification where each phenomenon is an
event occurring in real time at a given physical location over a
given time duration that is a high level abstraction of raw data to
be collected by the data capture system. Therefore, Feldman
cannot provide teachings to one of skill in the art regarding these
elements that can be used to modify Srikanth in order to achieve
the claimed invention. Therefore, one of skill in the art given
Srikanth either alone or in combination with Feldman would not
be provided with sufficient teachings to practice the claimed
invention as currently recited in claims 1 and 14.
App. Br. 13—14. Yet Appellants acknowledge the following:
Feldman transforms “a spatial representation of a road network
12 into a network of spatially interdependent and interrelated
oriented road sections, for forming an oriented road section
3 Claims 1 and 14 stand provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory
double patenting over claim 18 of copending US Patent Application No.
13/912,147. Final Act. 2.
3
Appeal 2017-005085
Application 13/912,058
network 14.” (para. [0042]) Next a “variety of vehicular traffic
data and information associated with the oriented road section
network ... [is obtained] ... from a variety of sources.” (para.
[0051]) This can be obtained from mobile sensors associated
with vehicles including cellular phones contained within the
vehicles.
Id. 13 (citing Feldman || 42, 51).
We find no persuasive argument or evidence in the latter quote—or
elsewhere—to convince us that the former claim is valid. Specifically, in
our view, the claimed “raw data” reads directly on Feldman’s mobile sensor
data (1151, 55), and the claimed “phenomenon” (“an event occurring in real
time at a given physical location over a given time duration that is a high
level abstraction of raw data to be collected by the data capture system”)
reads directly on Feldman’s “vehicular traffic data” and/or the higher level
abstraction of “vehicular traffic related service applications” (“modeling and
processing vehicular traffic data and information, and using the modeled and
processed vehicular traffic data and information for providing a variety of
vehicular traffic related service applications to end users”) (131).
Accordingly, we see no error in the Examiner’s finding that Feldman
discloses whatever of claims 1 and 19 Srikanth lacks, namely “using
physical sensors located in a plurality of data generating networked devices
in the data capture system disposed in the given physical location during the
given time duration to obtain the raw data in real time.” Final Act. 5. We
adopt the Examiner’s findings and conclusion that claims 1 and 14 are
unpatentable over the combination of Srikanth and Feldman (Final Act. 3—5)
and the Examiner’s response (Ans. 4—12) to Appellants’ arguments (App.
Br. 5-14).
4
Appeal 2017-005085
Application 13/912,058
DECISION4
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 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)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
4 In the event of further prosecution, we leave it to the Examiner to
determine whether the claims recite patent eligible subject matter under
35 U.S.C. § 101. See Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International,
134 S.Ct. 2347, 2350 (2014).
5