Ex Parte Hill et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 30, 201611618162 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 30, 2016) Copy Citation 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. 11/618,162 12/29/2006 Charles R. Hill CAM920060142U S1 (166) 5372 46321 7590 CRGO LAW STEVEN M. GREENBERG 7900 Glades Road SUITE 520 BOCA RATON, EL 33434 12/02/2016 EXAMINER OBISESAN, AUGUSTINE KUNLE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2156 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/02/2016 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): docketing@crgolaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHARLES R. HILL, SANDRA L. KOGAN, SHI XIA LIU, and MARTIN M. WATTENBERG Appeal 2014-007865 Application 11/618,162 Technology Center 2100 Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, HUNG H. BUI, and BARBARA A. PARVIS, Administrative Patent Judges. BUI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING Appellants have filed a Request for Rehearing under 37 C.F.R. § 41.52 for reconsideration of our Decision on Appeal, mailed September 26, 2016 (“Decision”). In that Decision, we affirmed the Examiner’s final rejections of claims 1—17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Beringer et al., (EP 1,619,618 Al; published Jan. 25, 2006; “Beringer”), Ghoneimy et al., (WO 00/14618; published Mar. 16, 2000; “Ghoneimy”), and Mansfield (US 2007/0250762 Al; published Oct. 25, 2007). We have considered the arguments presented by Appellants in the Request for Rehearing (“Req. Reh’g”), but we are not persuaded that any points were misapprehended or overlooked by the Board in issuing the Decision. We have provided herein Appeal 2014-007865 Application 11/618,162 additional explanations, but decline to change our decision in view of Appellants’ arguments. ANALYSIS The applicable standard for a Request for Rehearing is set forth in 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1), which provides in relevant part, “[t]he request for rehearing must state with particularity the points believed to have been misapprehended or overlooked by the Board.” In this case, Appellants request a rehearing not on the basis of any points believed to have been misapprehended or overlooked by our Decision, but on the basis of Appellants’ disagreement with our construction of the term “pivoting a query” recited in independent claims 8, and 13 and similarly recited in claim 1. See Req. Reh’g 4—5. In particular, Appellants assert our construction of the term “pivoting a query” “appears to overlook the teachings of paragraph [0020]” of Appellants’ Specification. Req. Reh’g. 5. Paragraph [0020] of Appellants’ Specification describes: “In illustration, Figure 1 is a pictorial illustration of a relationship model of a document for use in a context browser configured for navigation of pivotally related information for a document. The relationship model 100 can include a multiplicity of nodes in an activity, where each of node corresponds to a different activity object, for instance a task, a document, a message, and the like. Each node in the relationship model 100 can be associated with one or more other nodes such that computing a pivot for the relationship model on any given node will provide a set of related nodes. Each node in the set, in turn can be viewed as a pivot resulting in a set of related nodes and so forth. It will be recognized by the skilled artisan that the relationship model 100 can be 2 Appeal 2014-007865 Application 11/618,162 defined within a flat file or relational database, for example, and can be rendered visually as well as shown in Figure 1.” Req. Reh’g. 4 (citing Spec. 120). According to Appellants, the term “pivoting a query” refers to “providing a set of related nodes (plural) for a given node.” Id. Appellants further argue “if the Board were to adopt the claim construction of ‘pivoting a query’ in line with the teaching of paragraph [0020] of [Appellants’ Specification] the production of a set of related nodes (plural) for a selected node,” the “Board would draw a different conclusion as to the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).” Req. Reh’g. 5. We disagree. At the outset, we note that the Board has not misapprehended or overlooked any points or arguments originally raised by Appellants. The Board carefully considered Appellants’ previous arguments, but nevertheless found the cited references, Beringer and Ghoneimy, teach or suggest all disputed limitations (including “pivoting a query”). Dec. 6—10. In our Decision, we explained that the term “pivoting a query” is not explicitly defined in Appellants’ Specification and, in the absence of such a definition, construed the term “pivoting a query” in the context of Appellants’ Specification as “taking of action based on selection of one of a set of objects that possess an association or relation.” Dec. 7 (citing Spec. ^fl[ 9-11, 21—22, Fig. 2). Based on our construction, we found “Beringer teaches ‘pivoting a query’ because Beringer teaches the selection of one of a set of associated or related objects (one of the 420s) and the taking of an action based on that selection (the display of the selected object 420).” Dec. 9 (citing Ans. 3; Beringer || 13, 18, 35—36). 3 Appeal 2014-007865 Application 11/618,162 Contrary to Appellants’ assertion, paragraph [0020] of Appellants’ Specification does not define the term “pivoting a query”, but rather describes the outcome or consequence of “pivoting a query” as “resulting in a set of related nodes.” Spec. 120. As discussed in our Decision, our construction of the term “pivoting a query” was based on our reading of Appellants’ Specification, including, for example, paragraphs [0009]— [0011], [0021]—[0022], Dec. 7. “[T]he fact that [Appellants] can point to definitions or usages that conform to their interpretation does not make the PTO’s definition unreasonable when the PTO can point to other sources that support its interpretation.” In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1056 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (emphasis added). Even if we were to adopt Appellants’ belated proposed construction of “pivoting a query” in line with the teaching of paragraph [0020] of Appellants’ Specification as “the production of a set of related nodes (plural) for a selected node,” we still find Beringer teaches “pivoting a query” in the context of using a pivot activity object 420 to identify a set a related objects, shown in Beringer’s Figure 3. See Dec. 8. CONCLUSION We have considered the arguments raised by Appellants in the Request, but find none of these arguments persuasive that our original Decision misapprehended or overlooked any points raised by Appellants resulting in error. It is our view, Appellants have not identified any points the Board misapprehended or overlooked. We decline to grant the relief requested. This Decision on Appellants’ “REQUEST FOR 4 Appeal 2014-007865 Application 11/618,162 REHEARING’’ is deemed to incorporate our earlier Decision by reference. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1). DECISION We have granted Appellants’ request to the extent that we have reconsidered our Decision, but we deny the request with respect to making any changes therein. The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) remains AFFIRMED. REHEARING DENIED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation