Ex Parte Hosea et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 23, 2012

11057759 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 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. 11/057,759 02/14/2005 Devin F. Hosea 60136.0154USC1 7086 94140 7590 10/24/2012 Merchant & Gould - Cox PO Box 2903 Minneapolis, MN 55402 EXAMINER DEBROW, JAMES J ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2176 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/24/2012 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 DEVIN F. HOSEA, RICHARD SCOTT ZIMMERMAN, ARTHUR P. RASCON, ANTHONY SCOTT ODDO, and NATHANIEL JOHN THURSTON ____________ Appeal 2011-006091 Application 11/057,759 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before THU A. DANG, GREGORY J. GONSALVES, and ANDREW J. DILLON, Administrative Patent Judges. GONSALVES, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-006091 Application 11/057,759 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1-11, 13-16, and 18-20 (App. Br. 2). Claims 12 and 17 were cancelled (Ans. 2). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. The Invention Exemplary Claim 1 follows: 1. A method for adapting a web page to be published for a user, comprising: profiling a web page to create a web page profile by parsing the web page to extract different types of content components and associating a classification of a plurality of classifications with each one of the different types of content components, wherein the plurality of classifications for each parsed content component comprises psychographic categories, the web page profile being distinct from and stored separately from the web page; providing a user profile having a plurality of psychographic categories, each psychographic category having an affinity rating and a confidence value; comparing the psychographic categories of the web page profile to the psychographic categories of the user profile to identify psychographic categories of the user profile matching psychographic categories of the web page profile; and producing a modified web page by rearranging, transparent to the user via a proxy server, the parsed content components of the web page according to psychographic categories determined to match psychographic categories of the user profile in an order based on the affinity rating and a confidence value of the psychographic categories of the user profile; Appeal 2011-006091 Application 11/057,759 3 wherein the affinity rating and confidence value of the psychographic categories of the user profile are derived from tracking the user’s actual web surfing activity associated with a plurality of web sites. Claims 1-11, 13, 16, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Hosea (U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No.: 2002/0059094 A1, May 16, 2002) (Ans. 4-10). Claims 14 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hosea in view of Miyasaka (U.S. 6,766,362 B2, Jul. 20, 2004) (Ans. 10-12). Claims 19 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hosea in view of Hoffman (U.S. 6,640,240 B1, Oct. 28, 2003) (Ans. 12-14). FACTUAL FINDINGS We adopt the Examiner’s factual findings as set forth in the Answer (Ans. 3, et seq.). ISSUE Appellants’ responses to the Examiner’s positions present the following issue: Did the Examiner err in finding that Hosea discloses “profiling a web page profile by parsing the web page to extract different types of content components and associating a classification of a plurality of classifications with each one of the different types of content components,” as recited in independent claim 1 and as similarly recited in independent claim 18? Appeal 2011-006091 Application 11/057,759 4 ANALYSIS Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claims 1 and 18 as anticipated because Hosea does not disclose “creating a web page profile by parsing a web page to extract different types of content components” (App. Br. 9). Appellants argue that “because Hosea fails to disclose parsing and extracting content from a web page, Hosea cannot associate a classification to the different types of content components (that were parsed and extracted)” (id.). The Examiner found, however, that Hosea meets these claim limitations because it “discloses extracting the actual URL request and the URL data” (Ans. 14). The Examiner also reasoned “that in extracting the URL request, wherein the HTML pointed to by the URL is parsed, the different types of components which are typically contained on a web page, are retrieve[d] from the HTML page (id. at 15). We agree with the Examiner. Hosea discloses that web pages may include different types of content components “such as text, graphics, images, sound, video, etc.” (¶ [0036]). Hosea also discloses that web pages may also contain “links to other servers and files” (id.). Hosea also discloses that the client machine has “an HTML-compatible browser” (¶ 0037]). That is, Hosea’s client machine, because it has a browser, extracts the different components of a web page such as text, graphics, images, sound, video and links to other web pages. Moreover, Hosea discloses associating classification information with URLs that “may include demographic or psychographic data” (¶ [0042]). In other words, Hosea discloses profiling web pages by associating classifications with the various URL links to other web pages. Appeal 2011-006091 Application 11/057,759 5 Appellants also contend that Hosea does not disclose “comparing the psychographic categories of the web page profile . . . to the psychographic categories of a user profile” (App. Br. 10). In addition, Appellants contend that Hosea does not disclose “rearranging the parsed content components of the web page in an order based on the affinity rating and confidence value of the psychographic categories of the user profile determined to match the psychographic categories of the web page” (App. Br. 12 (emphasis omitted)). The Examiner found, however, that Hosea satisfies this claim limitation because it discloses that “program data extracted from the set top box concerning the user’s web surfing interactions includes . . . different types of content component on the web pages that the user visited” (Ans. 15). The Examiner also reasoned that Hosea discloses creating a user profile from the user’s web surfing interactions and rearranging components on a user’s display based on a comparison of the web page and user profiles (id. at 15-16 ). We agree with the Examiner. Hosea discloses storing the URLs of the web pages that a user has visited in an interaction database and building “a user profile 27 based on the information in the interaction database” (¶ [0041] and [0042]). Hosea further discloses that “[t]he profiles include a rating in each category that reflects the interest in the category of persons who access the . . . Web site” (¶ [0205]). Hosea also discloses that “[e]ach rating is accompanied by a confidence measure, which is an estimate of the accuracy of the rating” (¶ [0206]). Moreover, Hosea also discloses a URL display component that uses the user and web page profile “to ensure that the content placement (i.e., the pop-up advertisement) and timing is . . . Appeal 2011-006091 Application 11/057,759 6 effective” (¶ [0205]). That is, Hosea discloses rearranging the components of a web page such as its advertisements according to how well they match a user’s profile. Accordingly, we find no error in the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of independent claims 1 and 18. We also find no error in the Examiner’s rejections of the other claims on appeal (i.e., claims 2-11, 13-16, 19, and 20) because Appellants did not set forth any separate patentability arguments for those claims (see App. Br. 13-14). DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-11, 13-16, and 18-20 as anticipated or obvious. 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 Vsh