Ex Parte Cunningham et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 19, 2017

13657048 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 19, 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. 13/657,048 10/22/2012 GERARD CUNNINGHAM GB920120116US1 9400 8152-0211 112978 7590 06/21/2017 Cuenot, Forsythe & Kim, LLC 20283 State Road 7, Suite 300 Boca Raton, EL 33498 EXAMINER MCLEOD, MARSHALL M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2454 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/21/2017 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): ibmptomail@iplawpro.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte GERARD CUNNINGHAM, ELAINE HANLEY, RONAN M. O'SUILLEABHAIN, and FRED RAGUILLAT Appeal 2017-002819 Application 13/657,048 Technology Center 2400 Before JAMES R. HUGHES, ERIC S. FRAHM, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2017-002819 Application 13/657,048 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 10-25. Claims 1—9 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. The invention relates to a system for generating a user unavailability alert in a collaborative environment, for example, a calendaring application. Spec. 2, 18. Specifically, the system allows a user to select a control that indicates the user’s unavailability, and if participants in collaborative sessions may be impacted by the user’s unavailability, the system generates and sends a message to the impacted participants indicating the user’s unavailability. Spec. H 23, 29—30. Claim 10, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 10. A system comprising: a processor configured to initiate executable operations comprising: receiving a user input from a user indicating an unavailability of the user; responsive to the user input, analyzing activity of the user in the collaborative environment to identify whether any pending actions are allocated to the user which relate to other people identified by the user's participation in the collaborative environment; responsive to determining at least one pending action is allocated to the user which relates to at least one other person identified by the user's participation in the collaborative environment, generating a first message to 2 Appeal 2017-002819 Application 13/657,048 be communicated to the at least one other person indicating the unavailability of the user; and communicating the first message to the at least one other person. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Chakra Hughes Norwood Caligor US 2009/0319926 A1 US 2010/0174579 A1 US 2010/0250322 A1 US 2012/0239451 A1 Dec. 24, 2009 July 8,2010 Sept. 30, 2010 Sept. 20, 2012 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 10-25 stand provisionally rejected under the non-statutory doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting over US Application 14/053,260. Claims 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, 19, 22, and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Chakra. Claims 12, 17, 20, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Chakra, Caligor, and Norwood. Claims 13 and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Chakra, Caligor, Norwood, and Hughes. 3 Appeal 2017-002819 Application 13/657,048 ANALYSIS The Double Patenting Rejection Appellants do not present specific arguments regarding the non- statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection of claims 10-25. Absent a showing of error, we sustain the rejection of claims 10—25 for double patenting. The Anticipation Rejection Appellants contend Chakra fails to disclose “analyzing activity of the user in the collaborative environment,” as recited in claim 10. App. Br. 11. Specifically, Appellants argue Chakra’s “set of calendar entries 113 are not an activity, of the user, in the collaborative environment. ” Id. Appellants further contend the Examiner improperly relies on Chakra’s work environment, i.e., the actual place of work, for disclosing the claimed “collaborative environment.” App. Br. 13. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. Chakra describes a calendar system 116 that allows a user to report an absence 112 (Chakra 122), where receipt of the absence 112 can cause an absence manager component 117 to determine a set of calendar entries 113 affected by the absence 112. These calendar entries 113 can include those entries 113 occurring during the period of absence, as well as future calendar entries 113 that are unlikely to be completed in time due to the absence 112. Calendar entries 113 can include meeting entries, to-do entries, and other scheduled items associated with any event or task. Chakra 123. Further, Chakra discloses “the absence manager 117 can optionally notify 122 a manager 120 of the affected events,” and “the 4 Appeal 2017-002819 Application 13/657,048 manager 120 can select from among a set of situation handling options, such as . . . notifying a set of meeting attendees that an absentee 105 will not be attending the meeting.” Chakra 124. We agree with the Examiner that Chakra’s calendar system 116 is a “collaborative environment.” Ans. 4. Appellants’ Specification defines “collaborative environment” to mean “an environment in which users collaborate via one or more communication networks,” where the environment may include “calendaring applications.” Spec. 118. Chakra discloses “calendaring systems are integrated into a suite of communication tools and/or document management tools, which help coordinate data exchanges for meeting related activities.” Chakra 12. Accordingly, Chakra’s calendar system 116 meets the limitation of a “collaborative environment” as defined in Appellants’ Specification. We need not address the issue of whether the claimed “collaborative environment” should be interpreted more broadly to also include a physical work environment—as the Examiner finds (Final Act. 4; Ans. 5)—because, as discussed below, the Examiner does not solely rely on Chakra’s activities that occur in the physical work environment for meeting the claim 10 limitation “activity of the user in the collaborative environment.” Rather, the Examiner finds, and we agree, that Chakra’s calendar entries 113 in the calendar system 116 meet the limitation of “activity of the user in the collaborative environment.” See Ans. 4. Chakra discloses the calendar entries include “meeting entries, to-do entries, and other scheduled items associated with any event or task.” Chakra 123. We find the scheduled items that comprise Chakra’s calendar entries represent “activity of the user in the collaborative environment” because the user must perform 5 Appeal 2017-002819 Application 13/657,048 some scheduling activity in the calendar system to create the calendar entries. Further, Chakra discloses it is the calendar entries that are analyzed to determine whether to take an action such as “notifying a set of meeting attendees that an absentee 105 will not be attending the meeting.” Chakra 23—24. That is, Chakra’s system does not analyze an actual physical meeting to determine which attendees to notify of the user’s absence; rather, Chakra analyzes the calendar entries, i.e., the “activity of the user in the collaborative environment,” to determine which attendees to notify. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ Reply Brief argument that Chakra’s calendar entries 113 “are not activities of the user in the calendaring system” because “they are descriptions of activities, to be performed by the user outside of the calendaring system.” Reply Br. 3. Although Chakra’s calendar entries 113 correspond to events that may take place in the physical workplace, the entries themselves, which the Examiner equates to the claimed “activities” (Ans. 4), are created and exist in the calendar system 116. See Chakra 123; Fig. 4. We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 10, and claims 11, 14, 16, 18, 19, 22, and 24 not specifically argued separately. The Obviousness Rejections Appellants do not present specific arguments regarding the obviousness rejections of claims 12, 13, 17, 20, 21, and 25, but rather rely on the same arguments presented for claim 10. See App. Br. 13—15. Appellants’ claim 10 arguments are not persuasive, as discussed above, and 6 Appeal 2017-002819 Application 13/657,048 thus we sustain the rejections of claims 12, 13, 17, 20, 21, and 25 for the same reasons as claim 10. CONCLUSIONS Under the non-statutory doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting, Appellants have not shown the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 10-25. Under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b), the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, 19, 22, and 24. Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 12, 13, 17, 20, 21, and 25. DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 10—25 is affirmed. 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 7