Ex Parte Good et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 26, 2012

11253645 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 26, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte FREDERICK L. GOOD, THUY TU PHAM, and CRAIG STUBER
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Appeal 2010-007414
Application 11/253,645
Technology Center
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Before, HOWARD B. BLANKENSHIP, GLENN J. PERRY, and
BRIAN J. McNAMARA, Administrative Patent Judges.

McNAMARA, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
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SUMMARY

Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1-18. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S. C. § 6(b). We affirm.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant’s invention is a method and system for web site navigation in
which a navigation bar has a jump control section to provide the user a visual
indication of a total number of a first set of linked web pages and a jump box
allowing the user to jump to any page within the site. The navigation bar also has a
strolling control section that provides a visual indication of the total number of web
pages within a subset of related pages, identified as the second set, and the current
page number within the subset. (Abstract). Claim 1 is illustrative.

1. A navigation tool for navigating a web site, said web site comprising a
related, predetermined set of web pages in a hierarchical page structure that are
configured by a web server and displayable by an internet browser, said
predetermined set of web pages being linked as a first set of linked web pages and
at least a second set of linked web pages, the navigation tool encoded as
instructions on a computer-readable storage medium, the computer-readable
storage medium comprising:
jump control instructions that provide a visual indication on the internet
browser of a total number of the first set of linked web pages available for access
by a user, wherein all web pages are assigned a unique page number during a page
creation procedure, each page number is an integer uniquely identifying a location
of a particular web page within the hierarchical page structure of the web site, and
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the user can access the particular web page by typing the unique page number
corresponding to the particular web page; and
strolling control instructions that provide a visual indication on the internet
browser of a total number of the second set of linked web pages available for
access by the user.

THE REJECTIONS
Claims 1-7 and 11-15 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as unpatentable
over US 7,216,115 B1 (“Walters”) in view of US Patent Publication No.
2006/0069670 A 1 (“Khaliq”) further in view of US Patent Publication No.
2004/0083241 A1 (“Mifune”).
Claim 16 was rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as unpatentable over Walters
in view of Khaliq further in view of US 6,938,051 B1 (“Burger”).
Claims 17-18 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as unpatentable over
Walters in view of Khaliq further in view of Burger and further in view of Mifune.
Claims 8-10 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as unpatentable over
Walters, Khaliq and Mifune as applied to claim 7 and further in view of US
7,162,686 (“Blazejewski”).

THE REJECTION OF CLAIMS 1-7 AND 11-15
CONTENTIONS
Appellants argue independent claims 1 and 11 together. Accordingly, we
apply the same analysis to claims 1 and 11.
The positions of the Examiner and Appellants are detailed in the Appeal
Brief filed on December 17, 2009, the Examiner’s Answer mailed on March 1,
2010 and Appellants’ Reply Brief filed on April 29, 2010. The Examiner finds
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that Walters discloses the various elements of the claims but does not expressly
teach all webpages are respectively assigned unique integer page numbers
identifying a location of a particular webpage within the hierarchical structure of
the website. (Ans. 4). However, the Examiner finds that Walters’ disclosure of
assigning court case numbers suggests that each page of the first set of pages is
assigned a unique page number during a page creation procedure, making it
obvious to use the court case number to uniquely identify the location of the
corresponding web page in the hierarchical page structure of the court web site.
(Id.). The Examiner reasons that the claimed term "all webpages" is broad and can
be interpreted as “all webpages of the first set of linked webpages." (Ans. 13).
The Examiner finds that Khaliq teaches that the user can access a particular
page by typing the corresponding page number (Ans. 5). The Examiner further
finds that in Figure 10 Mifune discloses a user interface with a visual indication of
the total number of first set of pages and a visual indication of the total number of
the second set of linked pages. (Id.).
Appellants contend that Walters does not permit a user to select a case by
picking a uniquely assigned page number, but only permits a user to jump ahead or
back one page at a time (App. Br. 8-9). Citing page 15 of the Examiner’s Answer,
Appellants also contend that because the Examiner misinterprets the term "all web
pages," the Examiner incorrectly concludes that claim 1 does not require all web
pages within the entire hierarchical structure of the website to be accessible using
the claimed jump box. (Reply Br. 5). According to Appellants because each page
is assigned a “unique” number, the term "all webpages" refers to the entire set of
webpages, and not just a subset or set of webpages. (Reply Br. 4-5).
Appellants also argue that the webpage numbering system disclosed in
Khaliq is not global but is limited to each document and that the web server would
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not know the corresponding page to retrieve if the page number were not first
associated with a particular document. (Reply Br. 6). Citing Figure 6 of Mifune,
Appellants argue that Mifune depicts the use of a file number and page numbers
instead of the recited subject matter of having total numbers for both first and
second sets of linked web pages. (App. Br. 10). Appellants further argue that the
disclosure in Mifune Figure 10 of File No. 1/3 teaches away from the recited
subject matter because Mifune’s file number is unrelated to the total number of
pages. (Reply Br. 7).
ANALYSIS
During prosecution before the USPTO, we give claims their broadest
reasonable interpretation. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1363
(Fed. Cir. 2004). Claim 1 states in part “…wherein all webpages are assigned a
unique page number during a page creation procedure, each page number is an
integer uniquely identifying a location of a particular webpage within the
hierarchical page structure of the website...” While this language indicates that
each page number uniquely identifies the location within the website, the claim is
not limited to any particular hierarchical page structure. Therefore, the broadest
reasonable interpretation of the claim language does not preclude hierarchical page
structures other than an ordered sequence of integers beginning at some particular
number and incrementally increasing by one for each subsequent page, as
described in Appellants’ specification. Because the rejection of claim 1 is made
under 35 U.S.C. § 103, there is no error in the Examiner’s citation of references
using other hierarchical structures to suggest the claimed subject matter.
Even under Appellants’ theory, however, claim 1 is obvious under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103. As the Examiner notes in Fig. 3 and column 9, lines 22-38, Walters
suggests a hierarchical structure in which a list of records (uniquely identified by
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case numbers) from a search of the universe of records appears in a side panel
allowing the user to select a responsive record in the list without returning to a full
list of records. (Ans. 14). As Appellants note, however, to navigate to pages
within the record, Walters shows only a forward and back arrow. Figure 6 of
Khaliq demonstrates that it is known to provide a page number box 680 and a jump
to page button to allow a user to jump to a specific page. (¶0064). Thus, Walters
and Khlaiq demonstrate that it is known to identify documents with a unique
identification number in a hierarchy identifying the location of the document and
that a user can jump to a particular page by typing a unique page number.
Mifune provides the further disclosure that page numbers may be numerical
integers in sequence. Appellants' discussion of Mifune’s Figure 10 focuses only
Mifune’s identification of files. Appellants’ characterization of Mifune omits the
box at the bottom of Figure 10, which shows the current page within the total
number of pages in a file group and the current page within a particular file.
Mifune Figure 10 shows three files, each file having three pages. The page number
display on the left is page 1 of 9, which is the total number of pages. The additional
indications, 1/3, 0/3, and 0/3, notify the user that each file consists of three pages
and the page represented by the on-screen index image corresponds to the first
page of the first file of the file group. (See, ¶[0051]). Thus, Mifune makes explicit
the teaching in Walters of a first set of linked web pages uniquely numbered as
integers (pages 1-9 in Mifune) and a second set of web pages uniquely numbered
as integers (pages 1-3 of 3 in Mifune) for each of the three files.
In view of the disclosures in Walters, Khaliq and Mifune, Appellants have
not demonstrated any error in the rejection of claims 1 and 11.
With respect to claim 3, Appellants separately argue that the file numbers of
Mifune are not unique and do not correspond to a page number of a current web
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page. (App. Br. 11). As discussed above, Appellants’ arguments do not address
the page number box in Figure 10 of Mifune. Therefore, we affirm the rejection of
claim 3.
Appellants argue that claims 2-7 and 12-15 are patentable because they
depend from claims 1 and 11, respectively. In the absence of further distinctions
over the art of record, we affirm the rejection of claims 2-7 and 12-15 for the same
reasons we affirm the rejection claims 1 and 11.

THE REJECTION OF CLAIM 16
In response the rejection of claim 16, Appellants repeat their arguments
concerning Walters and Khaliq and argue that, while Burger may disclose a single
page number, Burger fails to disclose the page number uniquely identifies the
location of a particular webpage within a hierarchical page structure of the website.
(App. Br. 13). As previously discussed however, Walters and Khaliq disclose
uniquely identifying the location of a particular webpage in a hierarchical structure
of the website and navigating by page number within a group. Burger Figure 3
shows a graphical user interface which enables the user to locate any page in a
yellow page directory, either by page numbering or by heading. (Col. 8, l. 18-50).
Thus, we affirm the rejection of claim 16.1

THE REJECTION OF CLAIMS 17 AND 18
Claims 17 and 18 were rejected in further review of Mifune. Appellants
argue only that claims 17 and 18 are allowable as depending from claim 16. In the

1 While we do not assert a new ground of rejection, we note that, as we discussed
with respect to claim 1, Mifune makes explicit the teaching of Walters and further
supports the rejection.
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absence of further argument, we affirm the rejection of claims 17 and 18 for the
same reasons that we affirm the rejection of the claim 16.

THE REJECTION OF CLAIMS 8-10
Claims 8 and 9 depend from claim 7 and recite that if the strolling back
button is selected when the current page is a first (claim 7) or last (claim 8)
webpage of the second set of linked webpages, the server is directed to display a
webpage corresponding to a third set of linked webpages different from the second
set of linked pages. (Claims 7 & 8).
The Examiner finds that column 7, line 52 through column 8, 1ine 19 of
Blazejewski discloses that a browser could refrain from repositioning the content
of the document display because the first occurrence of the search term is already
displayed and when the link represents the last occurrence of the search term, the
user can click on a link to be transported to the bottom of the display. (Ans. 12).
From this disclosure the Examiner reasons that Blazejewski suggests to the
ordinarily skilled artisan that if the strolling back button is selected when the
current page is a first page of the second set of linked pages, the server could detect
it. (Id. at). Citing column 6, line 60 – column 7, line 7, the Examiner further finds
that it would have been obvious to have the browser as taught by Walters and
Blazejewski display the report list web page, to allow the user to select the next
document without having to return to the result page. (Id.). The Examiner notes
that the report list web page lists all documents containing the search term located
by the viewer and corresponds to a third set of linked pages, which is different
from the second set of linked pages. (Id.).
Appellants contend that the links in documents the Examiner refers to in the
cited portions of Blazejewski do not correspond to the third set of linked webpages
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as recited in claims 8 and 9. (App. Br. 16, Reply Br. 9), but offer no arguments
concerning the combination of the references.
The rejection of claims 8 and 9 is based on the combination of Walters,
Khaliq, Mifune and Blazejewski. As the Examiner notes, Blazejewski suggests that
a browser could detect activation of the back button beyond the current document.
(Ans. 12). Referring to Figure 10 and in several other figures, e.g. Figure 14,
Mifune discloses displaying the page number with the total number of pages (the
first set) and the page number within a specific file (the second set and subsequent
sets). (¶[0058]). As shown in Figures 10 and 14, Mifune indicates page 1 of 9 in
the first set and page 1 of 3 in the second set of pages. As noted above,
Blazejewski discloses detecting the activation of the back button beyond the
current document. Applied to Mifune, as one moves past page 3 to page 4 of 9 in
the first set of Mifune, the page number of the second set would change to 0 and
the page number of the third set, i.e., File 2, would be incremented from 0 to 1. A
similar result occurs as one moves from page 4 to page 3 in the first set. Khaliq
teaches the use of page numbers. Thus, we affirm the rejection of claims 8 and 9.
Claim 10, which depends from claim 1, recites that a directory page is a
member of the first set of web pages, i.e., the directory page is one of the web
pages, and a member of the third set of web pages different from the second set of
web pages. (Claim 10). Claim 10 further recites that a directory button is
selectable to direct the server to load the directory page as a current page when the
current web page is the second set of linked pages. (Id.). Appellants offer no
arguments other than that claim 10 depends from claim 1, which they argue is
patentable. Since we have affirmed the rejection of claim 1, in the absence of
further argument, we affirm the rejection of claim 10.

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ORDER
The rejection of claims 1-7 and 11-15 under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as
unpatentable over Walters in view of Khaliq and further in view of Mifune is
affirmed.
The rejection of claim 16 under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as unpatentable over
Walters in view of Khaliq further in Burger is affirmed.
The rejection of claims 17-18 under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as unpatentable over
Walters in view of Khaliq further in view of Burger and further in view of Mifune
is affirmed.
The rejection of claims 8-10 under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as unpatentable over
Walters, Khaliq and Mifune as applied to claim 7 and further in view of
Blazejewski 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)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED