Ex Parte Kumar et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 12, 2016

12362409 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 12, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/362,409 0112912009
74739 7590 04/14/2016
MILES & STOCKBRIDGE P.C.
Oracle International Corporation
17 51 Pinnacle Drive
Suite 1500
Tysons Corner, VA 22102-3833
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Darshan Kumar
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.
T9049- l 9390US01 1003
EXAMINER
ROTARU, OCTAVIAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3624
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/14/2016 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):
Ipdocketing@MilesStockbridge.com
bgoldsmith@milesstockbridge.com
smcvean@milesstockbridge.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DARSHAN KUMAR, AMBILI SUDHI, GOVINDRAJA ACHAR,
P ANKESH JHA VERI, HARISH KUMAR, and WALTER BACK
Appeal2013-009993 1
Application 12/362,4092
Technology Center 3600
Before NINA L. MEDLOCK, BRADLEY B. BAY AT, and
AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges.
SHAH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
The Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
final decision rejecting claims 1, 4--8, 10, 12, and 14--21. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the Appeal Brief ("Appeal Br.," filed
Apr. 9, 2013), the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.," filed Aug. 5, 2013), the
Examiner's Answer ("Ans.," mailed June 3, 2013), the Final Action ("Final
Act.," mailed Oct 12, 2012), and the Specification ("Spec.," filed Jan. 29,
2009).
2 According to the Appellants, the real party in interest is Oracle
International Corporation. Appeal Br. 3.
Appeal2013-009993
Application 12/362,409
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants' invention is directed to "customer relationship
management, and more particularly directed to sample management during a
sales call." Spec. ,-r 1.
Claims 1, 8, 10, and 12 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1
is exemplary of the subject matter on appeal and is reproduced below:
1. A method for validating pharmaceutical sales call data,
compnsmg:
receiving, by a processor operatively coupled to a display,
a request to validate the sales call data regarding pharmaceutical
samples, the sales call data comprising a product name, a lot
number and a quantity, as well as physician data;
retrieving a rules list comprising a plurality of rules for
validating the sales call data and rule criteria, wherein each rule
comprises a string indicating a name for the rule, a method name
of a function that applies a validation of the rule, a status message
indicating a result of the rule, a call type indicating a type of sales
call for which the rule is applicable, and an indication as to when
the rule should be processed depending on a signatory
requirement of the sales call;
wherein the rules list is customizable by changing, for at
least one rule, at least one of the method name of the function
that applies the validation of the rule, the status message
indicating the result of the rule, the call type indicating the type
of sales call for which the rule is applicable, or the indication as
to when the rule should be processed depending on a signatory
requirement of the sales call;
selecting a subset of customizable rules to apply to the
sales call data from the plurality of rules based on the rule
criteria;
validating, by the processor, the sales call data in
accordance with the subset of customizable rules, wherein all
rules in the subset of rules are applied in one iteration to validate
the sales call data before displaying to a user the subset of rules
that failed; and
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Appeal2013-009993
Application 12/362,409
displaying to the user a user list comprising, for each rule
in the subset of rules that failed, the name for the rule and a
message corresponding to the status message that comprises a
validation error that requires corrective action.
Appeal Br. 28, Claims App.
THE REJECTION
Claims 1, 4--8, 10, 12, and 14--21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gerrits (US 2005/0102192 Al, pub.
May 12, 2005), Gondi (US 2004/0187127 Al, pub. Sept. 23, 2004), and
Karimisetty (US 2005/0108295 Al, pub. May 19, 2005). Final Act. 5.
FINDINGS OF FACT
We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section
below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence. 3
ANALYSIS
Each of the independent claims 1, 8, 10, and 12 recites the limitation
substantially similar to "displaying to the user a user list comprising, for
each rule in the subset of rules that failed, the name for the rule and a
message corresponding to the status message that comprises a validation
error that requires corrective action." We find persuasive the Appellants'
argument that Gerrits, upon which the Examiner relies (see Final Act. 7-8),
3 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
(explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the
Patent Office).
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Appeal2013-009993
Application 12/362,409
and Karimesetty, which the Examiner cites (see Ans. 16), do not disclose the
limitation as claimed. See Appeal Br. 13-14; Reply Br. 11-13.
The Examiner finds that Gerrits, at Figures 7 and 8, discloses
displaying a user list indicating a failed rule and a message. Ans. 15-16.
The Examiner finds that clicking on the "Correct" button of Figure 8 "as
recited in i-f [0087] brings up the separate Fig. 7 according to the attributes
recited in i-f [0087] and presented in Fig. 7." Id. at 16. The Examiner further
finds that Karimesetty discloses, at paragraph 53, "the providing of records
of business events including failed or incomplete business events" and thus
discloses displaying to the user a name of the rule that failed. Ans 16.
Gerrits discloses displaying a list of all line items that the system
could not validate. See Gerrits i-fi-165, 86, and Fig. 8. Gerrits further
discloses:
selection of a flagged line item (by clicking on the "Correct"
button 818) brings up a separate edit line item screen wherein
the supplier 114 can provide the correct part number, part
number type, QOE, UOM, etc. In one embodiment, the
supplier 114 is [sic] can indicate whether the correction is to be
applied as a One Time Correction (e.g., by clicking on a "One
Time Correction" button), or whether the correction is to be
saved as an IME rule (e.g., by clicking on a "Save IME Rule"
button).
Gerrits i-f 87. Figure 7 allows a user to add a new IME rule (id. i-f 84), but
does not show either a "One Time Correction" or "Save IME Rule" button.
Thus, we find erroneous the Examiner's finding that Gerrits discloses that
clicking on the "correct" button of Figure 8 brings up a separate Figure 7.
Ans. 16.
Furthermore, we find that Gerrits discloses displaying a list of items
that could not be validated, i.e., line items that fail (see Gerrits i-f 86, Fig 8),
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Appeal2013-009993
Application 12/362,409
but does not disclose an indication of rules that failed. The limitation
requires, in relevant part, displaying a list "comprising, for each rule in the
subset of rules that failed, the name for the rule." Claims App. The
Specification describes the display as "indicating the results of data that has
not been validated" (Spec. i-f 30), and Figure 8B illustrates the results
window listing validation errors by indicating the rules that failed.
Therefore, we agree with Appellants that Gerrits does not disclose
displaying a list comprising, for each rule that failed, the name for the rule.
See Reply Br. 11.
Moreover, although the Examiner finds that Karimisetty teaches
providing records of business events including failed or incomplete events
(Ans. 16), the Examiner does not explain how one of ordinary skill in the art
would understand that Karimisetty teaches displaying, for each rule that
failed, a rule name, or why one of ordinary skill in the art would combine
Karimisetty' s providing of records with Gerrits' s display of a list of items
that could not be validated.
Thus, for the reasons above, we do not sustain the Examiner's
rejection of independent claims 1, 8, 10, and 12. For the same reasons, we
also do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claims 4--7 and
14--21.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 4--8, 10, 12, and 14--21 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is REVERSED.
REVERSED
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