Ex Parte Kimelfeld et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 8, 2016

13671213 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 8, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/671,213 11/07/2012
84374 7590 11/08/2016
LIEBERMAN & BRANDSDORFER, LLC
802 STILL CREEK LANE
GAITHERSBURG, MD 20878
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Benny Kimelfeld
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
ARC920120051US1 3191
EXAMINER
PULLIAS, JESSE SCOTT
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2657
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
11/08/2016 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 BENNY KIMELFELD, YUNY AO LI, and
SHIVAKUMAR VAITHYANATHAN
Appeal 2016-002357
Application 13/671,213
Technology Center 2600
Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, TERRENCE W. McMILLIN, and
CARLL. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2016-002357
Application 13/671,213
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 8-20. Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
Exemplary Claims
Exemplary claims 8 and 14 under appeal read as follows (emphasis
added):
8. A computer program product for classifying data, the
computer program product comprising a computer readable
storage medium having program code embodied therewith, the
program code being executable by a processor to:
receive textual data, and to analyze the received data,
including the processor to extract at least one sentence from the
received data;
parse the at least one sentence, including the processor to
extract and identify a subject, a verb, and an object, within the
parsed sentence;
identify a verb usage pattern in the parsed sentence;
categorize the extracted and identified subject, verb, and
object, the categorization of the verb responsive to the
identified verb usage pattern and verb form; and
classify the sentence based on the categorized subject,
verb, and object.
14. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the
categorization of the verb responsive to the identified verb
usage pattern is based on a reference to an existing linguistic
resource to provide a mapping from the verb usage pattern to
the categorization of the verb.
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Application 13/671,213
Rejection
Claims 8-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Nigam (2006/0069589) in view of Hobson (5,694,559).
Final Act. 5-9. 1
Appellants ' Contentions
1. Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting
independent claims 8 and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because:
Applicants disclose, in a non-limiting embodiment, that the
verb usage pattern of the parsed sentence is joined with the
context of the root form of the identified verb. Accordingly, an
example of the verb form of Appellants is the root form of the
identified verb.
In contrast to Hobson, Appellants' claims are directed to
identifying a verb in a sentence, and categorizing the identified
verb responsive to a verb usage pattern and verb form of the
identified verb. That is, verb form of Appellants is defined as a
form of a verb that has already been identified as a verb in a
sentence, such as a root form of the identified verb. The
definition of verb form of Appellants clearly cannot include the
definition of verb form taught by Hobson. For example, it is
trivial to assert that the term "verb form" of Hobson can be used
to categorize an identified verb, in the manner claimed and
disclosed by Appellants, since the only information that the
term "verb form" of Hobson conveys is that the word is a verb.
Accordingly, verb form as claimed and disclosed by Appellants
cannot possibly be interpreted under a broadest reasonable
interpretation standard to include Hobson's definition of verb
form.
App. Br. 11-12 (footnotes omitted).
1 Separate patentability is not argued for claims 9-13 and 15-20. Except for
our ultimate decision, these claims are not discussed further herein.
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Application 13/671,213
Nigam and Hobson, either separately or in combination,
fail to teach or suggest categorizing an identified verb
responsive to an identified verb usage pattern and verb form, as
claimed by Appellants. Accordingly, the combination of
Nigam and Hobson fails to teach or suggest all the limitations
of independent claims 8 and 15.
App. Br. 13.
2. Appellants also contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because:
In contrast to Nigam, Appellants claim categorizing a
verb responsive to a verb usage pattern and verb form based on
a reference to an existing linguistic resource to provide a
mapping from the verb usage pattern to the categorization of the
verb. As previously discussed, the verb categorization of
Appellants occurs prior to sentence classification. Moreover,
Appellants disclose that sentiment (e.g., positive, negative, or
neutral) is derived from the subject category, the verb category,
and the object category, and that sentence is classified based on
the categories and the derived sentiment. In other words, the
sentiment derivation of Appellants occurs after verb
categorization. Therefore, a mapping from a sentence fragment
to a polarity to classify a sentence, as taught by Nigam, is not
analogous to a mapping from a verb usage pattern to a
categorization of a verb, as claimed by Appellants.
Accordingly, Nigam fails to teach or suggest categorizing a
verb responsive to a verb usage pattern based on a reference to
an existing linguistic resource to provide a mapping from the
verb usage pattern to the categorization of the verb, as claimed
by Appellants.
App. Br. 16-17.
Issue on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 8-20 as being obvious?
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Application 13/671,213
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments (Appeal Brief and Reply Brief) that the Examiner has erred.
As to Appellants' above contention 1, we disagree. Appellants'
arguments are not commensurate in scope with the claim. The Examiner
correctly points out that claim 8 does not require "the root form of a verb."
Ans. 2. Further, contrary to Appellants' argument, the Examiner correctly
points out that the language "verb form" is nonspecific and could include
a word is being used in its verb form or its noun form, Hobson
is still identifying and categorizing a word as a verb based on
the word being used in its verb form. Given that "verb form" is
both an identification of the part of speech of a word as well as
the categorization of the word within a set of classes in the part-
of-speech domain (e.g. noun, verb, adverb), there is no reason
why the particular language "verb form" itself or the way it is
used in the claims necessarily requires that it be narrowly
interpreted as only including forms which a verb may take
while ruling out "verb form" as a part of speech category.
Ans. 3.
Also, we disagree with Appellants' conclusory assertions about the
interpretation of "verb form." Such unsupported attorney argument, is
entitled to little probative value. See In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470
(Fed. Cir. 1997); In re De Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705 (Fed. Cir. 1984). We
agree with the Examiner that
the particular language "verb form" never appears in
Applicant's specification at all, let alone any clearly set forth
definition of "verb form". The paragraphs cited by Applicant
provide the following examples of "the root form" of the
following verbs· "be" "break" "disappoint" "ask" and "ask" . ' ' ' '
respectively. Providing examples of root forms of verb
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Application 13/671,213
certainly does not amount to clearly setting forth a different
definition of "verb form" as Applicant argues.
Ans. 4.
As to Appellants' above contention 2, we find that the Examiner has
rebutted each and every one of those arguments supported by sufficient
evidence. Ans. 6-8. Therefore, we adopt the Examiner's findings and
underlying reasoning, which are incorporated herein by reference.
We have considered Appellants' Reply Brief but find it unpersuasive
in rebutting the Examiner's responses.
CONCLUSIONS
The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 8-20 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 8-20 are affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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