Ex Parte JonasDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 19, 201311332423 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 19, 2013) Copy Citation 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 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation