Ex Parte Hegeman et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 7, 2016

13171101 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 7, 2016)

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.
13/171,101 06/28/2011 John Hegeman 26295-18560 4954
87851 7590 11/09/2016
Faoehnnk/Fen wi ok
EXAMINER
Silicon Valley Center LI, SUN M
801 California Street
Mountain View, CA 94041 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3681
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/09/2016 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):
ptoc @ fenwick.com
fwfacebookpatents @ fenwick.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JOHN HEGEMAN and RONG YAN
Appeal 2014-0080131
Application 13/171,1012
Technology Center 3600
Before JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
BRUCE T. WIEDER, Administrative Patent Judges.
MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 Our decision references Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed
February 5, 2014) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed July 14, 2014), and
the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed June 5, 2014) and Final Office
Action (“Final Act.,” mailed October 9, 2013).
2 Appellants identify Facebook, Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2013-008013
Application 13/171,101
CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellants’ claimed invention “relates to selecting and presenting
advertisements to users in an online service” and, more particularly, “to
selecting and presenting advertisements to users in an online service based
on cost modifiers normalized based on the market value of the
advertisements or users” (Spec. 12).
Claims 1, 12, and 20 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving a plurality of advertisements, each
advertisement associated with a bid price;
receiving feedback from a group of users representing a
level of interest explicitly indicated by the group of users for each
of at least a subset of the advertisements;
for each of at least the subset of the advertisements;
computing an expected revenue value for presenting each
advertisement to a particular user based on the bid price;
computing a modifier value based on the feedback
received for each advertisement;
normalizing, by a computer, the modifier value of each
advertisement based on a market value associated with a
characteristic of the particular user; and
computing a total value of each advertisement based on
the expected revenue value and the normalized modifier value;
selecting one or more advertisements for presentation to
the particular user from the plurality of advertisements based at
least in part on the total values of the advertisements; and
sending the selected one or more advertisements for
display to the particular user.
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Application 13/171,101
REJECTIONS
Claims 1—3, 5—7, 9, 11—14, 16, 17, 19, and 20 are rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Gerace ‘328 (US 2006/0282328 Al,
pub. Dec. 14, 2006) and Gerace ‘802 (US 2007/0118802 Al, pub. May 24,
2007).
Claim 4, 8, 15, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Gerace ‘328, Gerace ‘802, and Sharma
(US 2008/0275757 Al, pub. Nov. 6, 2008).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Gerace ‘328, Gerace ‘802, and Fernandez (US 2008/0120166 Al,
pub. May 22, 2008).
ANALYSIS
Independent Claim 1 and Dependent Claims 2, 3, 5—7, 9, and 11
We are persuaded by Appellants’ argument that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) at least because the combination
of Gerace ‘328 and Gerace ‘802 fails to disclose or suggest “normalizing . . .
the modifier value of each advertisement based on a market value associated
with a characteristic of the particular user,” as recited in claim 1 (App.
Br. 7—8). The Examiner cites Gerace ‘802 as disclosing the argued
limitation (Ans. 5—9 (citing Gerace ‘802 || 4, 19, 23, 98, Fig. 4C
(item 46))).
Gerace ‘802 is directed to a computer system for publishing content,
e.g., text, photography, video, audio, multimedia, and the like, on the
internet and making that content available to the general public, to a defined
group of users, or to specific individuals (Gerace ‘802 14). Gerace ‘802
discloses that in various embodiments, the system provides a rating system
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Application 13/171,101
where readers of an authored work rate the work for quality; the system
normalizes ratings based on the population of the community or the general
population of the nation/world, and assigns to authors the average rating of
their authored works site wide {id. 111). Author compensation/rewards also
are tied to, i.e., are a function of, the quality and/or popularity of, or the
advertising revenue derived from, the authored works they publish {id. 123).
Responding to Appellants’ arguments in the Response to Argument
section of the Answer, the Examiner explains (1) that “the modifier value of
each advertisement,” as recited in claim 1, is interpreted as the
rankings/ratings of each advertisement, i.e., authored work, as disclosed in
Gerace ‘802, which is modified each time the work is rated (Ans. 5—6) and
(2) that “market value associated with a characteristic of a particular user” is
interpreted as a market value of a particular user, i.e., an author, measured
by the popularity of the user, i.e., the author, among the community or the
popularity of the user-generated content, i.e., the authored works {id. at 6).
The Examiner explains that “the modifier value of each advertisement based
on a market value associated with a characteristic of the particular user,” as
recited in claim 1, is, therefore, interpreted as “the modified ranking of each
advertisement based on a particular user’s popularity, or [the popularity of]
his content or [the] compensation fee paid to this particular user” {id. at 7).
The Examiner notes that there is no definition or description in Appellants’
Specification of how normalization is performed, and that under a broadest
reasonable interpretation standard, normalizing is reasonably interpreted as
taking an average of the reader’s rating, which Gerace ‘802 discloses {id.
at 8—9 (citing Gerace ‘802 111, Fig. 4C (item 46))).
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Application 13/171,101
The difficulty with the Examiner’s interpretation is that it is at odds
with the Gerace ‘802 disclosure. The Examiner takes the position, as
described above, that the modifier value, called for in claim 1, is computed
based on the feedback received for each advertisement from a group of
users, which according to the Examiner’s interpretation are the users in the
Gerace ‘802 system that rate the authored works. Claim 1, however, recites
that the modifier value is normalized “based on a market value associated
with a characteristic of the particular user,” i.e., the particular user to whom
each advertisement is presented. But the Examiner interprets this as the
market value of the author as measured by the popularity of the author or the
compensation paid to the author (see Ans. 6—7). Properly construing this
limitation under a broadest reasonable interpretation standard, the Examiner
does not indicate where Gerace ‘802 discloses or suggests “normalizing . . .
the modifier value of each advertisement based on a market value associated
with a characteristic of the particular user” to whom the advertisement is
presented.
In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). For the same reasons, we also do not
sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 2, 3, 5—7, 9, and 11.
Cf. In reFritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (“dependent claims
are nonobvious if the independent claims from which they depend are
nonob vious.”).
Independent Claims 12 and 20 and Dependent Claims 14, 16, 17, and 19
Independent claims 12 and 20 include language substantially similar
to the language of claim 1, and stand rejected based on the same rationale
applied with respect to claim 1 (Final Act. 4—8). Therefore, we do not
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sustain the Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of independent
claims 12 and 20, and claims 14, 16, 17, and 19, which depend from
claim 12, for the same reasons set forth with respect to claim 1.
Dependent Claims 4, 8, 10, 15, and 18
The Examiner’s rejections of dependent claims 4, 8, 10, 15, and 18 do
not cure the deficiencies in the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1
and 12, from which claims 4, 8, 10, 15, and 18 depend. Therefore, we do
not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 4, 8, 10, 15, and 18 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
are reversed.
REVERSED
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