Ex Parte Chen

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 31, 2016

13370461 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 31, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/370,461 02/10/2012
95866 7590 11/02/2016
Fleit Gibbons Gutman Bongini & Bianco P.L.
551 NW 77th street
Suite 111
Boca Raton, FL 33487
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Henry Yao-Tsu 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.
9169-101155-US 8980
EXAMINER
NAOREEN, NAZIA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2458
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/02/2016 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):
ptoboca@fggbb.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte HENRY YAO-TSU CHEN
Appeal2015-000595
Application 13/370,461
Technology Center 2400
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM,
Administrative Patent Judges.
DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2015-000595
Application 13/370,461
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-16, which constitute all the claims pending in
this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
The invention relates to determining an identifying image for a social
content source depending on a user's treatment of social content from the
source (Spec. i-f 11 ).
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A method comprising:
at a control circuit:
monitoring treatment of incoming social content from a
social content source to provide treatment information
corresponding to the social content source, the treatment
information indicating an extent to \'l1hich incoming social
content from the social content source was processed per a user's
corresponding instruction; and
using the treatment information to determine an
identifying image to present for the social content source.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Andreas son
Johnson et al. ("Johnson")
Kim et al. ("Kim")
British Telecommunications
US 2008/0278520 Al
US 7,885,948 B2
US 8,271,046 B2
EPO 0 999 507 Al
2
Nov. 13, 2008
Feb. 8, 2011
Sept.18,2012
May 10, 2000
Appeal2015-000595
Application 13/370,461
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1--4, 8-11, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Johnson and Kim.
Claims 5 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Johnson, Kim, and British Telecommunications.
Claims 6, 7, 13, 14, and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Johnson, Kim, and Andreasson.
ANALYSIS
Appellant contends "Johnson relates to tagging messages" and "in
contrast to Johnson, the presently claimed subject matter is more properly
viewed as pertaining to tagging sources as versus messages" (App. Br. 11 ).
Appellant also contends "Kim does not provide any teaching relating to
determining an avatar based on the 'extent to which incoming social content
from the social content source was processed per a user's corresponding
instruction"' (App. Br. 11 ). Rather, "Kim is content to modify the
appearance of an avatar based upon how many times the user has called the
other party and how many times the other party has called the user with no
suggestion that it matters as to whether the call is actually answered" (App.
Br. 12). We are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments.
Johnson discloses detecting a user's behavior relating to content from
a particular source, and marking the content from the source with a priority
ranking according to the behavior (see Johnson, Abstract; col. 1, 11. 47---67).
In one example, Johnson describes that
3
Appeal2015-000595
Application 13/370,461
each time a communication is received from Janet Jones, it is
immediately opened and replied to (or another action taken).
Observation component 310 can infer that there is a relationship
between the recipient and Janet Jones (e.g., co-workers,
boss/employee and so forth) and future communications from
Janet Jones can be marked as important.
(Johnson, col. 6, 11. 13-19). Here, we find "Janet Jones" is a source of social
content, and thus Johnson's inferring a relationship and marking
communications from "Janet Jones" as "important" meets the claim 1
limitation of "monitoring treatment of incoming social content from a social
content source to provide treatment information corresponding to the social
content source." Further, Johnson's marking of communications from
"Janet Jones" as important based on how quickly the user opens and replies
to such communications meets the claim 1 limitation of "the treatment
information indicating an extent to which incoming social content from the
social content source was processed per a user's corresponding instruction."
Accordingly; we are not persuaded by Appellant's argument that Johnson
only relates to marking messages, as opposed to marking the source of
messages (see App. Br. 11 ).
Kim discloses:
When a communication event such as making/receiving a call or
sending/receiving a message occurs, a number of avatar images
respectively corresponding to the parties of the communication
event (such as a caller and a callee or a sender and a receiver) are
displayed on the idle screen. The avatar images may be modified
according to a characteristic of the communication event ....
(Kim, col. 7, 11. 54---60). We find Kim's use of avatar images teaches
determining "an identifying image to present for a social content source," as
recited in claim 1. Appellant's argument that Kim's avatar appearance is
based only on call events, not a user's treatment of call events (App. Br. 12;
4
Appeal2015-000595
Application 13/370,461
Reply Br. 2), is not persuasive because the Examiner relies on Johnson for
teaching "treatment information indicating an extent to which incoming
social content from the social content source was processed per a user's
instruction," as discussed above (Final Act. 2-3). The Examiner only needs
to rely on Kim for teaching the determination of an identifying image for a
social content source. Further, we agree with the Examiner that it would
have been obvious to include Kim's avatar in Johnson's system to improve
the means of communication of Johnson's marking of source messages
(Final Act. 3; Ans. 4). Appellant has not shown that using Kim's avatar as a
visual indication of the priority ranking of messages from sources in Johnson
would have been "uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill
in the art." Leapfrog Enterprises, Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157,
1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citingKSRint'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727,
1741 (2007)).
We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim
1, and claims 2-16 not specifically argued separately.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-16 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).
DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-16 are
affirmed.
5
Appeal2015-000595
Application 13/370,461
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
6