Ex Parte Grandhi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 8, 2016

12484154 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 8, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/484,154 06/12/2009
132862 7590 11/10/2016
Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner, P.A. I PayPal
P.O. Box 2938
Minneapolis, MN 55402
Roopnath Grandhi
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.
2043.600US1 1704
EXAMINER
CHOI, YUK TING
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2153
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/10/2016 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):
slw@blackhillsip.com
uspto@slwip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ROOPNATH GRANDHI and NEELAKANTAN SUNDARESAN
Appeal2015-005075
Application 12/484, 154
Technology Center 2100
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, KAMRAN JIV ANI, and
ALEX S. YAP, Administrative Patent Judges.
YAP, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection
of claims 1-3, 5, 8, and 9, 2 which are all the claims pending in this
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)
We affirm.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is eBay Inc. (App. Br.
2.)
2 Claims 4, 6, and 7 were cancelled previously. (App. Br. 18.)
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Application 12/484, 154
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' invention "relates generally to the field of network-based
queries and, more specifically, to the field of search engines." (June 12,
2009 Specification ("Spec.") i-f 2.) An example in the Specification
describes an embodiment of the claimed invention as follows:
a search query is received. A search is performed based on the
search query to obtain a list of items. A plurality of item sets is
identified from the list of items based on a clustering technique.
The plurality of item sets for the search query is indexed. An
additional search query may be received. A search is performed
based on the indexing of the plurality of item sets. A response to
the search query is provided based on the performing of the
search.
(Spec. i-f 21.) As a further example, Claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. A network-based method for navigating search results
provided by responses to queries comprising:
using at least one computer processor and computer
storage,
receiving a plurality of search queries from client
machines over a network;
performing, offline, the operations of,
performing searches based on the plurality of
received search queries to obtain lists of items respectively
corresponding to individual ones of the plurality of search
quenes;
detecting query contexts with which the search
queries are respectively associated, the query contexts
determined by detecting the use cases of the respective
queries and comprising identification of the use cases;
mapping the lists of items to the respective query
contexts;
applying a clustering algorithm to the lists of items
via a clustering engine to provide clusters based on the
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Application 12/484, 154
clustering algorithm;
associating respective ones of the query contexts to
individual clusters;
generating a cluster index that maps the query
contexts to associated cluster descriptions;
in real time, receiving a search query associated
with one of the query contexts;
retrieving, from the cluster index, a cluster
description that corresponds to the one of the query
contexts; and
providing a response to the real time search query,
based on the one of the query contexts, the response
comprising signals indicating a cluster description and at
least one item in the cluster associated with the one of the
query contexts.
Prior Art and Rejections on Appeal
The following table lists the prior art relied upon by the Examiner in
rejecting the claims on appeal:
Wise
Lin et al.
("Lin")
Gehrking et al.
("Gehrking")
US 2002/0174051 Al
US 6,675,159 Bl
US 2006/0242147 Al
Nov. 21, 2002
Jan. 6, 2004
Oct. 26, 2006
Claims 1-3, 5, and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Lin in view of Gehrking. (See Final Office Action
(mailed June 13, 2014) ("Final Act.") 3-12.)
Claim 8 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Lin in view of Gehrking and further in view of Wise. (See
Final Act. 12-13.)
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ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants'
positions. We adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth by the
Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and the reasons set
forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants'
Appeal Brief. (Ans. 4--8.) We further highlight and address specific
findings and arguments for emphasis as follows.
Claims 1-3, 5, and 8
With respect to independent claims 1, 2, and 5, the Examiner finds
that Lin teaches or suggests the following limitations:
detecting query contexts with which the search queries are
respectively associated, the query contexts determined by
detecting the use cases of the respective queries and comprising
identification of the use cases;
in real time, receiving a search query associated with one
of the query contexts.
(Final Act. 3-9.) Appellants contend that Lin does not teach or suggest
these limitations because "Lin, at most, merely discuss [sic] receiving a
search query associated with an example document, which is not disclosed
to be equivalent to any identified query predicates from a user query."
(App. Br. 11-12; Reply 2-5.) Appellants, however, fail to persuade us that
the Examiner has erred. We agree with the Examiner that Lin teaches or
suggests the limitations at issue. (Final Act. 3-9; Ans. 4---6.) For example,
we agree with the Examiner that Lin teaches or suggests a system that can
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identify query predicates from a user query and map the identified query
predicates to the documents that are retrieved based on the user's query:
Documents are indexed by the predicates they contain,
which are equivalent to user queries. Thus, two methods are
provided for indexing new documents, both of which are realized
in the component. The first method involves the retrieval of new
documents to answer user queries, which do not already have
documents matched to them. The questions are parsed by the
query ontological parser 120, which produces a set of predicate
structures. These predicates contain a plurality of keywords,
which may be brokered to other search facilities to retrieve their
indexed documents relating to the user's query.
(Lin, 20:20-30, emphasis added; Ans. 4---6.) We also agree with the
Examiner that Lin teaches or suggests "receiving a later or subsequent user
search query in real time online mode associated with one of the identified
query predicate or context." (Id.; see, e.g., Lin, 20: 10-12 ("In the document-
indexing mode a search index is built to store documents as predicates,
which can later be used to efficiently match user queries to indexed
documents.").)
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of Examiner error in
the rejection of independent claims 1, 2, and 5, and therefore sustain the
35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of these claims. Appellants do not set forth any
separate, substantive patentability arguments regarding claims 3 and 8,
which depends from either claim 1 or 2. (App. Br. 12, 14.) Therefore, for
the same reasons articulated above, Appellants' arguments do not persuade
us that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 3 and 8 and we also sustain the
35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections of these claims.
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Claim 9 recites:
Claim 9
9. A network-based method to cluster search results, the
method comprising:
receiving a plurality of search queries from one or more
client machines over a network;
repeating an offline search based on the plurality of search
queries to obtain lists of items;
providing the lists of items to a cluster engine and
retrieving a plurality of clusters;
associating a respective cluster description and a
respective cluster name with each of the plurality of clusters and
storing the clusters in a database;
receiving an additional search query from a client
machine;
identifying a cluster name for the additional search query
based on a cluster description;
querying the database with the cluster description to
identify a plurality of item sets from the plurality of clusters; and
providing a response to the additional search query based
on querying the database, the response compnsmg signals
indicating the cluster name which, when selected, indicates at
least one item in the cluster associated with the cluster name.
The Examiner finds that while "Lin does not explicitly disclose
associating a respective cluster description and a respective cluster name
with each of the plurality of clusters[,] Gehrking discloses associating a
respective cluster description and a respective cluster name with each of the
plurality of clusters." (Final Act. 11-12.) Appellants, however, contend:
even if Gehrking does disclose identifying a "proper [cluster]
category" (e.g., cluster description) in response to a user search
as alleged, this would still be different from the subject matter of
claim 9 which provides for identifying a cluster name in response
to a user search portion. Accordingly, since Gehrking, at most,
discloses identifying a cluster description in response to a user
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search, it does not disclose or suggest the features that the
Examiner is relying on the reference for in the context of the
present rejection.
(App. Br. 13, emphasis added, emphasis in original omitted; Reply 6-7.)
The Examiner disagrees and states that:
The Examiner has incorporated the Gehrking reference [to Lin]
to teach associating a cluster description and a cluster name with
each of the plurality of clusters. Gehrking teaches associating a
cluster category description such as Art & Literature/Books
&periodicals with a cluster identifier or name such as magazine
or subscription. Gehrking discloses providing a cluster name
with at least one item in the cluster associated with the cluster
name (See Gehrking para. [0102]- para. [0105] and Figure 18
and 23).
(Ans. 8, emphasis omitted.) We are not persuaded that the Examiner has
erred. We agree with the Examiner's findings regarding Gehrking. In
addition, "[ o ]ne cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references
individually where, as here, the rejections are based on combinations of
references." See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981).
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of Examiner error in
the rejection of claim 9 and therefore sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of
claim 9.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-3, 5, 8, and 9
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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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
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