Ex Parte Jonas

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 19, 2013

11332423 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 19, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
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.
11/332,423 01/13/2006 Jeffrey James Jonas SVL920050501US4 5352
45729 7590 04/22/2013
GATES & COOPER LLP - IBM
6701 CENTER DRIVE WEST
SUITE 1050
LOS ANGELES, CA 90045
EXAMINER
BROWN, SHEREE N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2163
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/22/2013 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 JEFFREY JAMES JONAS
____________

Appeal 2010-010818
Application 11/332,423
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, MARC S. HOFF, and
JEFFREY S. SMITH, Administrative Patent Judges.

RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 112-127 and 239-258, which are all of the pending claims. Claims
1-111 and 128-238 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
Appeal 2010-010818
Application 11/332,423

2

Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner,
reference is made to the Appeal Brief (filed Feb. 11, 2010), the Answer
(mailed May 12, 2010), and the Reply Brief (filed July 9, 2010).

Appellant’s Invention
Appellant’s invention relates to the processing and retrieving of data,
the querying of data, and the analyzing of data in a data warehouse. A
relationship record, which includes a relationship type and a confidence
indicator for the relationship, is created for each record stored in a database
which reflects the existence of a relationship with at least a portion of
received data. See generally Abstract and Spec. 9:17-31.

Claim 112 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
112. A method for processing data in a database, the
method comprising the steps of:
receiving data comprising at least one record having at least one
identifier, each record representing at least one of a plurality of entities;
comparing the received data with at least one record stored in a
database to determine an existence of a relationship therebetween;
creating a relationship record for each record stored in the database
determined to reflect the existence of a relationship with at least a portion of
the received data, wherein the relationship record includes a relationship
type and a confidence indicator for the relationship;
and
storing the relationship record in the database.

The Examiner’s Rejection
The Examiner relies on the following prior art reference to show
unpatentability:
Appeal 2010-010818
Application 11/332,423

3
Rotter US 6,912,549 B2 June 28, 2005
(filed Nov. 6, 2001)

Claims 112-127 and 239-258, all of the appealed claims, stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Rotter.1

ANALYSIS
With respect to independent claims 112 and 239, Appellant contends
that the Examiner erred in interpreting Rotter as disclosing the creation of a
relationship record that “includes a relationship type and a confidence
indicator for the relationship” as claimed. According to Appellant, while
Rotter discloses the use of matching criteria to compare the contents of first
and second records to determine the likelihood that the first and second
records are associated with a common entity, there is no disclosure of the
creation of a relationship record that includes a relationship type (App. Br.
13-15; Reply Br. 2-3). Even further, Appellant contends that Rotter has no
disclosure of a confidence indicator for the created relationship as claimed
but, rather, merely determines “commonality data” which is a measure that
quantifies the occurrence of common items in the first and second records
(id.).
We agree with Appellant, as our interpretation of the disclosure of
Rotter coincides with that of Appellant. In support of the stated position, the
Examiner directs attention to the portion of Rotter at column 4, lines 30-35
which discloses the indication of a “false positive” match, i.e., records that
are falsely identified as being potential duplicate records. Rotter discloses

1 The Examiner has withdrawn the objection to claims 114, 115, 241, and
242 (Ans. 10).
Appeal 2010-010818
Application 11/332,423

4
that these “false positive” matching records in fact “may be associated with
individuals who are twins, or who are family members . . . .”
Nowhere, however, does Rotter ever disclose that a relationship
record is created from the determined false positive records that includes the
type of relationship, let alone any confidence factor for such relationship as
claimed. While we agree with the Examiner that the particular instances of
the type of relationship included in the relationship records, such as father,
co-conspirator, etc., are not recited in the claims, the claims nonetheless
require the inclusion of a relationship type field in the relationship record, a
feature which is missing from the disclosure of Rotter.
Further, even assuming that the Examiner is correct in determining
that Rotter’s assigning of a weighting factor to potential duplicate records
corresponds to the claimed “confidence indicator,” we agree with Appellant
that any such “confidence indicator” in Rotter merely indicates whether first
and second records are associated with a common entity. As argued by
Appellant Rotter provides no indication of any kind of association with a
created relationship record that includes a relationship type.
In view of the above discussion, since all of the claim limitations are
not present in the disclosure of Rotter, we do not sustain the Examiner’s
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) rejection of independent claims 112 and 239, nor the
rejection of claims 113-127 and 240-258 dependent thereon.

CONCLUSION
Based on the analysis above, we conclude that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claims 112-127 and 239-258 for anticipation under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e).
Appeal 2010-010818
Application 11/332,423

5

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 112-127 and 239-258 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) is reversed.

REVERSED

gvw