Ex Parte Hasselback et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 23, 2012

11321498 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 23, 2012)

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. 11/321,498 12/29/2005 Dana J. Hasselback KCX-1022 (21603) 9279 22827 7590 11/26/2012 DORITY & MANNING, P.A. POST OFFICE BOX 1449 GREENVILLE, SC 29602-1449 EXAMINER DAGNEW, SABA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3688 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/26/2012 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte DANA J. HASSELBACK, JAMES C. RICHARDSON, CHRISTINE KLAUBAUF, TIM MILLER, ANDY VANOFFEREN, KIM LEINTZ, JOY JENTES, BART RABAS, and ROBERT A. ROTHE ____________________ Appeal 2011-004900 Application 11/321,498 Technology Center 3600 ____________________ Before: JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and MICHAEL W. KIM, Administrative Patent Judges. KIM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-004900 Application 11/321,498 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1- 6, 8-11, 13-16, 18, and 191. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. The claims are directed to a method for integrating attitudinal and behavioral data for marketing consumer products (Spec. 2:22-23). Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for marketing a consumer product comprising: collecting attitudinal data from a group of consumers and, based on the data, placing the consumers into attitudinal segments; collecting purchase behavioral data from the group of consumers; inputting the attitudinal data and the purchase behavioral data into a computing tool; integrating the purchase behavioral data with the attitudinal data with the computing tool by further subdividing the attitudinal segments based on the purchase behavioral data to form a plurality of consumer segments with commonalities, each consumer segment having commonalities based both on the attitudinal data and the behavioral data; inputting a volume sales objective for a brand into the computing tool for each of the plurality of consumer segments with commonalities; inputting estimated future percent loyalty changes into the computing tool for each of the plurality of consumer segments; calculating with the computing tool a penetration for the brand for each consumer segment necessary to meet the volume 1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed July 1, 2010) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed November 15, 2010), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed September 14, 2010). Appeal 2011-004900 Application 11/321,498 3 sale objective taking into account the estimated future percent loyalty changes; selecting one of the consumer segments as a target segment based at least in part on the calculated penetration; and determining a marketing vehicle for the target segment. REFERENCES Hastings US 2006/0085255 A1 Apr. 20, 2006 REJECTIONS Claims 1-6, 8-11, 13-16 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C 102(e) as being anticipated by Hastings. ANALYSIS We are persuaded the Examiner erred in asserting that Hastings discloses “collecting attitudinal data from a group of consumers and, based on the data, placing the consumers into attitudinal segments;… integrating the purchase behavioral data with the attitudinal data with the computing tool by further subdividing the attitudinal segments based on the purchase behavioral data to form a plurality of consumer segments with commonalities, each consumer segment having commonalities based both on the attitudinal data and the behavioral data,” as recited in independent claim 12 (App. Br. 5-14; Reply Br. 2-3). The Examiner cites paragraphs [0053] and [0075] of Hastings for disclosing the collection of Voice of Customer data, which includes “hierarchy of needs; functional benefits; values related to usage; customer usage behavior; purchase/shopping habits; media usage 2 We choose independent claim 1 as representative of all claims. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Appeal 2011-004900 Application 11/321,498 4 behavior; customer hopes/fears; customer solution; and competitive issues.” The Examiner asserts that this corresponds to the recited “attitudinal data and [ ] behavioral data” (Ans. 4, 9). The Examiner then cites paragraphs [0078]-[0079], [0231], [0346], and [0353]-[0359] of Hastings for disclosing behavioral/demographic/customer segments, which the Examiner asserts corresponds to the recited “consumer segment” (Ans. 4-5, 9). However, the aforementioned aspect of independent claim 1 recites specific ways in which the attitudinal and behavioral data is used to create consumer segments, for example “placing the consumers into attitudinal segments” and “further subdividing the attitudinal segments based on the purchase behavioral data to form a plurality of consumer segments.” By contrast, the Examiner has not shown how the alleged “attitudinal data and [ ] behavioral data” in paragraphs [0053] and [0075] of Hastings is used to create the behavioral/demographic/customer segments in the paragraphs [0078]- [0079], [0231], [0346], and [0353]-[0359] of Hastings. As this is an anticipation rejection which requires that all claim aspects are disclosed by the reference, for the aforementioned reasons, we cannot sustain this rejection. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-6, 8-11, 13-16, 18, and 19 is REVERSED. Appeal 2011-004900 Application 11/321,498 5 REVERSED MP