Ex Parte Jenkins et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 1, 2017

13570536 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 1, 2017)

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.
13/570,536 08/09/2012 Jana H. Jenkins RSW920120045US1 7715
70854 7590
Kunzler, PC./RSW
50 Broadway
Ste 1000
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
12/05/2017 EXAMINER
ALLEN, NICHOLAS E
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2154
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/05/2017 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):
jeff@kunzlerlaw.com
lauren@kunzlerlaw.com
docket @ kunzlerlaw .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JANA H. JENKINS, DAVID C. STEINMETZ, and
WLODEK W. ZADROZNY
Appeal 2017-006203
Application 13/570,536
Technology Center 2100
Before JAMES R. HUGHES, ERIC S. FRAHM, and
MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges.
FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-006203
Application 13/570,536
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1—7 and 15—20. Claims 8—14 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
Appellants’ application relates to automatically creating questions and
answers from content that can be used to respond to search queries directed
to a corpus of documents that includes the content. Spec. H 3, 15—16. For a
given document in the corpus, the content creator may provide questions that
the content in the document is intended to answer. Spec. 117. However,
Appellants’ system additionally creates candidate questions the content
creator did not contemplate, but which may be useful to content users, and
analyzes the content to provide answers to the candidate questions. Spec.
1115, 17. The candidate questions and answers are then provided to the
content creator for verification. Spec. 117. Claim 1, reproduced below, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer program product, comprising:
a computer readable storage medium to store a computer
readable program, wherein the computer readable program,
when executed by a processor within a computer, causes the
computer to perform operations for question/answer creation for
a document, the operations comprising:
importing a document created by a content creator, the
document having a set of questions based on content in the
document, wherein the document is a single file;
scanning the content of the document and metadata in the
document;
automatically creating a candidate question not entered by
the content creator, creating the candidate question from the
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Appeal 2017-006203
Application 13/570,536
content in the document and the metadata of the document,
wherein the metadata is not visible when the document is opened
by a content user;
automatically generating answers for the set of questions
and the candidate question using the content in the document;
presenting the set of questions, the candidate question, and
the answers to a content creator for user verification of accuracy;
and
storing a verified set of questions in the document,
wherein the verified set of questions comprises the candidate
question.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Nakazawa US 2008/0195378 A1
Cong US 2010/0063797 A1
Roberts US 2011/0153312 A1
Overstreet US 8,060,390 B1
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1—4, 6, 7, and 15—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Overstreet, Roberts, and Nakazawa.
Claim 5 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Overstreet, Roberts, Nakazawa, and Cong.
Aug. 14, 2008
Mar. 11,2010
June 23, 2011
Nov. 15,2011
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds the combination of Overstreet, Roberts, and
Nakazawa discloses all the limitations of independent claim 1, including that
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Appeal 2017-006203
Application 13/570,536
Nakazawa teaches a document that is a single file in which questions based
on content in the document are stored. Final Act. 2—6. Appellants contend
Nakazawa does not teach storing a verified set of questions in a document
that is a single file. App. Br. 9. We are persuaded by Appellants’ argument.
Nakazawa relates to preparing advance question and answer data, “a
so-called FAQ or QA collection,” by using a history of past dialogues, for
example, between customers and a company. Nakazawa Tflf 1—2.
Nakazawa’s describes a system that includes a dialogue history database 20,
a question and answer database 30, and a matching unit 40 for matching
dialogue history data with question and answer data. Nakazawa 1 50, Fig. 1.
An extraction unit 50 can extract question and answer data to be newly
added based on the result of the matching unit 40. Nakazawa 192. The
Examiner points to Nakazawa’s database 30 as teaching the claimed
document that is a single file and that stores questions. Final Act. 5.
However, the Examiner’s Answer does not directly address Appellants’
argument that Nakazawa does not teach a document that is a single file in
which questions are stored. See Ans. 3—6. We agree with Appellants (App.
Br. 9; Reply Br. 5) and find that Nakazawa’s database 30 is not a document
that is a single file, let alone a document in which questions are stored, that
is, the same document containing the content used for creating the questions,
as recited in claim 1.
Accordingly, we are constrained by the record to find the Examiner
erred in rejecting independent claim 1, independent claim 15, which recites
commensurate limitations, and dependent claims 2—7 and 16—20.
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Appeal 2017-006203
Application 13/570,536
CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1—7 and 15—20 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a).
DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—7
and 15—20 is reversed.
REVERSED
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