Ex Parte Cohen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 28, 2016

13247266 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 28, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 13/247,266 09/28/2011 Ira Cohen 56436 7590 05/02/2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise 3404 E. Harmony Road Mail Stop 79 Fort Collins, CO 80528 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. 82755123 9787 EXAMINER MITIKU, BERHANU ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2156 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/02/2016 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): hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com mkraft@hpe.com chris.mania@hpe.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte IRA COHEN, REF AEL DAKAR, ELI MORDECHAI, and OHAD ASSULIN Appeal2014-004662 Application 13/247,266 Technology Center 2100 Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and KEVIN C. TROCK, Administrative Patent Judges. KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, and 19, all remaining claims of the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We affirm. Appeal2014-004662 Application 13/247,266 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants' invention is directed to a "system and related method to process natural queries is provided" (Abstract). Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is exemplary of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A system comprising: at least one processor to: receive a natural language query; determine whether any portion of the natural language query matches one of a plurality of semantic keywords, each semantic keyword representing at least one attribute of a database model, the plurality of semantic keywords comprising synonymous semantic keywords, the synonymous semantic keywords representing at least one identical attribute of the database model to disambiguate ambiguous words in the natural language query; translate the natural language query into at least one database query, the at least one database query using a unique combination of attributes of the database model, each attribute in the unique combination being represented by a semantic keyword that matches any portion of the natural language query; to rank the at least one database query based on a relevancy of each database query such that the relevancy is further based on a number of one to one associations between the unique combination of attributes and the semantic keywords that match portions of the natural language query; and execute the at least one database query in a database arranged in accordance with the database model. 2 Appeal2014-004662 Application 13/247,266 REFERENCES and REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, and 17 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) based upon the teachings of Kaiser (US 7,720,674 B2, issued May 18, 2010), Li (US 2008/0235199 Al, published Sept. 25, 2008), and Adair (US 7,953,727 B2, issued May 31, 2011). The Examiner rejected claims 5, 12, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) based upon the teachings of Kaiser, Li, Adair, and Jung (US 7 ,904,4 77 B2, issued Mar. 8, 2011 ). ANALYSIS Appellants contend the Examiner erred in finding Kaiser teaches synchronous semantic keywords representing at least one identical attribute of a database model to disambiguate ambiguous words in a natural language query (App. Br. 9), Li teaches ranking based on semantic keywords that match portions of the natural language query (App. Br. 9-10), and Adair teaches ranking at least one database query based on the relevancy of each database query (App. Br. 10-11). The Examiner finds Kaiser implements various functions for translating a natural language query, including tokenization, to resolve uncertainties (ambiguities) (Ans. 4; Kaiser col. 7, 11. 28-33). Appellants' arguments recite what Kaiser discloses and merely state Kaiser does not teach the claim limitations for which it was cited, without providing evidence or reasoning as to how Kaiser's disclosure does not teach Appellants claim limitations. See 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv). The Examiner relies on Li's paragraph 4 for disclosing "translating a natural language query into a structured query for a database" and paragraph 3 Appeal2014-004662 Application 13/247,266 29 for disclosing a classifier "can then further classify the tokens and markers into types based on their potential semantic contributions in the query translation," meeting the claim limitation (Final Act. 10-11 ). Appellants have not argued Li for what it was cited, rather they argue Li does not disclose the ranking step, not the translating step. Thus, Appellants' argument is not commensurate in scope with the rejection. The Examiner finds Adair's "desirability" metric is the same as Appellants' relevancy metric (Ans. 5; see Spec. i-fi-f 18, 29 "a highest ranked database query may cause the database to generate a result that is most relevant"). That is, Adair's ranking queries based on high or low ranked queries, is considered a relevancy metric. The Examiner's findings are reasonable and, again, Appellants have merely recited the claim language and portions of Adair, stating they are not the same, without any further reasoning or persuasive evidence (App. Br. 10-11). See 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv). Although independent claims 1, 8, and 15 were argued separately, substantially similar arguments were made for each claim. Thus, for the reasons set forth above, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 8, and 15, claims 3, 7, 10, 14, and 18, argued therewith (App. Br. 11, 15, and 18), and claims 5, 12, and 19, not argued separately (App. Br. 18). DECISION The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 1 7, and 19 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv). 4 Appeal2014-004662 Application 13/247,266 AFFIRMED 5