Ex Parte Chen

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 21, 2016

13088468 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 21, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/088,468 04/18/2011 62730 7590 11/23/2016 SAP SE 3410 HILL VIEW A VENUE PALO ALTO, CA 94304 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR LIANG CHEN 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 2011P00010US 8514 EXAMINER SINGH, AMRESH ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2159 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/23/2016 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): APRIL.MENG@SAP.COM GIPinhouse@sap.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte LIANG CHEN Appeal 2015-007 664 Application 13/088,468 1 Technology Center 2100 Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-30. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We AFFIRM. Technology The application relates to fuzzy searching for an address. Spec. Abstract. Claim 1 is representative2 and reproduced below with the disputed limitation emphasized: 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Business Objects Software Limited, which is a subsidiary of SAP SE. Br. 3. 2 Appellant only argues the patentability of claims 2-30 by referring to the arguments made for claim 1. See Br. 13-14. Therefore, we select claim 1 as the representative claim, pursuant to our authority under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv). Appeal2015-007664 Application 13/088,468 1. A computer implemented method for a geocoding application, the method comprising: performing a lexical analysis on an input address to obtain portions of the input address; fuzzy searching a knot-sequence tree with the obtained portions of the input address for identifying one or more of a plurality of partial addresses stored by the knot-sequence tree; computing a matching and transposition score for the identified one or more of the plurality of partial addresses to determine a best matching candidate from the identified one or more of the plurality of partial addresses; and querying a geocoding database with the best matching candidate to obtain geocoding information related to the input address. Rejection Claims 1-30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as obvious over the combination of Broadbent et al. (US 2008/0312814 Al; Dec. 18, 2008) and Beatty et al. (US 2007/0260595 Al; Nov. 8, 2007). Final Act. 3. ISSUE Did the Examiner err in finding the combination of Broadbent and Beatty teaches or suggests "computing a matching and transposition score for the identified one or more of the plurality of partial addresses to determine a best matching candidate from the identified one or more of the plurality of partial addresses," as recited in claim 1? ANALYSIS Appellant contends in Broadbent, "there is no explicit teaching of a requirement of 'computing a score to determine partial matches."' Br. 13 (emphasis omitted). Yet obviousness does not require an "explicit" teaching and instead must consider the prior art from the perspective of a person of ordinary skill in the art. As the Supreme Court has said, "[a] person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton." 2 Appeal2015-007664 Application 13/088,468 KSR Int? Co. v. Telejlex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007). A limitation also is inherent if it is "necessarily" present or "the natural result." PAR Pharm., Inc. v. TWI Pharm., Inc., 773 F.3d 1186, 1196 (Fed. Cir. 2014). Here, Appellant has not adequately addressed the Examiner's finding that Broadbent teaches "partial matching of [an] address to generate search result[ s ]" and "the partial matching would require computing of a scoring to determine partial matches." Ans. 3 (citing Broadbent i-f 56). We agree with the Examiner that the detailed sequence of steps described in Appellant's Brief are "not recited in the claims." Id. at 4. Instead, the claims broadly recite "computing a matching and transposition score," regardless of whether the score uses the mathematical formula from the Specification or instead uses a simpler mathematical formula such as a binary score of match vs. no match. Appellant also has not sufficiently addressed the Examiner's finding that Beatty teaches "transposition scoring." Ans. 4. Specifically, Beatty teaches scoring for "fuzzy matching" of search terms that considers transpositions as one factor. "The score can be initialized to a perfect score and decremented or decreased by penalties for each incorrect or mismatched character .... For example, transposition of two characters should generate a lesser penalty than two independent, incorrect characters." Beatty i-f 31. Thus, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding Beatty teaches or suggests "computing a matching and transposition score." Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1, and claims 2-30, which Appellant argues are patentable for similar reasons. See Br. 13-14; 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv). 3 Appeal2015-007664 Application 13/088,468 DECISION For the reasons above, we affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-30. No time for taking subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a). 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.50(f). AFFIRMED 4