Ex Parte Gieseke et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 14, 2017

13561866 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 14, 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. 13/561,866 07/30/2012 Eric James Gieseke P6499US00 9628 11764 7590 Ditthavong & Steiner, P.C. 44 Canal Center Plaza Suite 322 Alexandria, VA 22314 06/16/2017 EXAMINER REINHARDT, RICHARD G ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3682 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/16/2017 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): docket@dcpatent.com Nokia. IPR @ nokia. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ERIC JAMES GIESEKE and ANINDITA MAHAPATRA Appeal 2016-0003 801 Application 13/561,866 Technology Center 3600 Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, MICHAEL W. KIM, and PHILIP J. HOFFMANN, Administrative Patent Judges. KIM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction to review the case under 35 U.S.C. §§134 and 6. The invention relates generally to “providing collection-based feature programming.” Spec. 127. 1 The Appellants identify Nokia Corp. as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 1. Appeal 2016-000380 Application 13/561,866 Independent claim 1 and dependent claim 7 are illustrative: 1. A method comprising facilitating a processing of and/or processing (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal, the (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal based, at least in part, on the following: at least one determination of at least one slot of at least one page associated with one or more content stores, wherein the at least one slot is for presenting one or more content items; an association, by at least one processor, of at least one collection of the one or more content items with the at least one slot based, at least in part, on a position of the at least one slot in a geographical hierarchy; and a selection of at least a portion of the at least one collection to present in the at least one slot. 7. A method of claim 1, wherein the (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal are further based, at least in part, on the following: at least one determination of the association of the at least one collection with the at least one slot at a first geographical hierarchical level; at least one determination of an input at a second geographical hierarchical level for causing, at least in part, an overriding of the association. Claims 1—20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as reciting ineligible subject matter in the form of an abstract idea. Claims 1—3, 5—8, 11—13 and 15—18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kan (US 8,635,537 Bl, iss. Jan. 21. 2014) and Chu (US 2009/0210316 Al, pub. Aug. 20, 2009).2 Claims 4 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kan, Chu, and Oddo (US 2013/0138790 Al, pub. May 30, 2013). 2 Although the final Office Action asserts that the claims are rejected under 102(e), because the rejection is over two references, we treat it as a rejection under 103(a). 2 Appeal 2016-000380 Application 13/561,866 Claims 9, 10, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kan, Chu, and Agarwal (US 8,504,437 Bl, iss. Aug. 6, 2013). We AFFIRM. ANALYSIS Rejections of Claims 1—6, 8—16, and 18—20 The Appellants advance no arguments concerning the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101 or 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), for either independent claims 1 or 11, or dependent claims 2—6, 8—10, 12—16, or 18—20, and, thus, waive argument as to all rejections of claims 1—6, 8—16, and 18—20. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). We, therefore, summarily affirm the rejections of claims 1— 6, 8-16, and 18-20. See In re Berger, 279 F.3d 975, 984, 985 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (holding that the Board did not err in sustaining a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, when the applicant failed to contest the rejection on appeal); see also 37 C.F.R. § 41.31(c) (2015) (“An appeal, when taken, is presumed to be taken from the rejection of all claims under rejection unless cancelled by an amendment filed by the applicant and entered by the Office.”). Rejection of Claims 7 and 17 Under 35 U.S.C. f 101 We are not persuaded by the Appellants’ argument that dependent claims 7 and 17 are not directed to abstract ideas, because, according to the Appellants, those claims comprise “a specific sequence of manipulative steps.” Appeal Br. 11. We are unclear as to the relevance of the Appellants’ assertion, in that the Examiner’s formulation of what the claims are directed to includes a specific set of operations, essentially matching those recited in claim 1. Final Act. 5. 3 Appeal 2016-000380 Application 13/561,866 We are also unpersuaded by the Appellants’ argument that “[cjlaim 7 includes features that are both new and useful[,] and add significantly more to the abstract idea of determining a slot of a page associated with one or more content stores,” where the features identified by the Appellants take into account geographical hierarchical levels. Appeal Br. 13. As noted by the Examiner, [hjowever, going further, having control over more specialized local advertising vs more generic regional campaigns is a well- known concept. For instance, a large corporation, such as McDonald’s would buy an advertising slot on television and use advertisements that cater to the local area, but if there is no special advertisement for the local area, a generic national advertisement gets used instead. This is an example of a fundamental economic concept that is found in the claims. This invention is just taking [a] known business concept and applying it with a computer. The known concept being that more local advertisements should override global/regional advertisements. The claim language does not provide any specific or particular limitations that would qualify as significantly more. Ans. 5. We are unpersuaded that the Appellants have identified adequately any error with the Examiner’s analysis. The Appellants finally argue that the claims, “taken as a whole, clearly solves a technological problem in ‘industry practice[.]’” Id. We disagree, as we are unpersuaded that “more local advertisements should override global/regional advertisements” is a technological problem. Accordingly, we are unpersuaded of Examiner error in this regard. For these reasons, we sustain the rejection of claims 7 and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. 4 Appeal 2016-000380 Application 13/561,866 Rejection of Claims 7 and 17 Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) We are not persuaded by the Appellants’ argument that “in Kan, there is no disclosure or suggestion of an ‘overriding of the association’ of the advertisement campaigns generally applicable to the identified item categories.” Reply Br. 2; see a Iso Appeal Br. 14—17. Kam discloses that its “ad campaign manager 126 can then utilize the user profile information to prioritize advertisement campaigns within each consumer type.” Kam col. 5 11. 23—25. We are persuaded that “to prioritize” indicates overriding a previous order of advertisement campaigns to a new order based on user profile information, thus, meeting the claim language to override an association of “one or more content items with the at least one slot.” For these reasons, we sustain the rejection of claims 7 and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION We AFFIRM the rejection of claims 1—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. We AFFIRM the rejection of claims 1—3, 5—8, 11—13 and 15—18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We AFFIRM the rejections of claims 4, 9, 10, 14, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 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 5