Ex Parte Lee et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 26, 2016

12775620 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 26, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
121775,620 05/07/2010
14568 7590
RowandLLP
Suite 900, 357 Bay St.
Toronto, ON MSH 2T7
CANADA
04/27/2016
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Hyun Chui Lee
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.
102-00lOUSPl 1506
EXAMINER
SHIN, KYUNG H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2443
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
04/27/2016 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 HYUN CHUL LEE, BYRON BONDLING MA, and
KYULEE
Appeal2014-004178
Application 12/775,620
Technology Center 2400
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM,
Administrative Patent Judges.
DIXOJ\J, ~4dministratfve Patent Jitdge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2014-004178
Application 12/775,620
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1,
3-12, and 15-23. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
The invention relates to monitoring dynamic web content stored at
multiple locations (Spec. i-f 1 ). Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of
the claimed subject matter:
1. A method of monitoring content stored at a plurality of
locations in a location set, the method comprising:
determining two or more historic attributes for a first
feature associated with each location;
for each location in the location set, determining a first
predicted attribute for the first feature associated with that
location based on the historic attributes for that first feature and
that location;
determining two or more historic attributes for a second
feature associated with each location;
for each location in the location set, determining a second
predicted attribute for the second feature associated with that
location based on the historic attributes for the second feature
and that location;
determining a monitoring schedule in accordance with the
first predicted attribute and the second predicted attribute; and
monitoring the content at the locations in the location set
according to the monitoring schedule.
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Appeal2014-004178
Application 12/775,620
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Crosswhite
Gattani
Wilcox
Gamble
US 6,611,726 Bl
US 8,315,849 B 1
US 2005/0198021 Al
US 2009/0037421 Al
Aug. 26, 2003
Nov. 20, 2012
Sept. 8, 2005
Feb. 5,2009
Sia et al., "Efficient Monitoring Algorithm for Fast News Alerts," IEEE
Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Vol. 19, No. 7, July 2007
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1, 3, 6-8, 11, 12, 15, 18-20, and 23 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sia and Gattani.
Claims 4 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Sia, Gattani, and Gamble.
Claims 5 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Sia, Gattani, and Wilcox.
Claims 9, 10, 21, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Sia, Gattani, and Crosswhite.
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds the combination of Sia and Gattani discloses all
the limitations of claim 1, including that Gattani discloses "determining two
or more historic attributes for a second feature," "determining a second
predicted attribute for the second feature," and "determining a monitoring
schedule in accordance with ... the second predicted attribute" (Final Act.
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Appeal2014-004178
Application 12/775,620
3--4). Appellants contend Gattani fails to disclose these features (App. Br.
7-15). We agree with Appellants.
Although we agree with the Examiner (Final Act. 2-3) that Sia
discloses "determining two or more historic attributes for a first feature,"
"determining a first predicted attribute for the first feature," and
"determining a monitoring schedule in accordance with the first predicted
attribute," as recited in claim 1, we find the Examiner's reliance on Gattani
for determining a second set of historic attributes for a second feature and
determining a second predicted attribute for use in determining the
monitoring schedule to be misplaced. That is, Sia discloses a way of
monitoring and retrieving content from RSS feeds that includes using "the
past k-day history data to estimate the posting rate of each source and decide
the optimal number of retrievals per day for each source." Sia 958. In other
words, Sia discloses determining historic attributes for the posting rate at
each source and determining a predicted attribute in the form of an estimated
posting rate for use in monitoring the sources. However, Sia does not
disclose determining a second predicted attribute based on historic attributes
of a second feature, and determining a monitoring schedule based on both
the estimated posting rate and a second predicted attribute. The Examiner
has not shown that Gattani cures Sia's shortcomings.
Gattani discloses a system for parsing documents and determining
concepts associated with textual representations in the documents (see
Gattani, col. 3, 1. 17---col. 5, 1. 13), but the Examiner has not shown that
Gattani discloses determining historic attributes for any features in a
document, or determining a predicted attribute for use in monitoring a
document. Although Gattani discloses "arc generators 1616 periodically
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Appeal2014-004178
Application 12/775,620
process their respective sources according to a schedule appropriate to the
source (e.g., with the Wikipedia arc generator running weekly, and the
pharmaceutical arc generator running monthly)" (Gattani, col. 25, 11. 51-55),
this regular schedule falls short of disclosing a monitoring schedule in
accordance with a predicted attribute based on historic attributes for a
feature of the monitored content location, as required by claim 1. Thus, the
Examiner has failed to show the combination of Sia and Gattani would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art to determine a monitoring
schedule for multiple content locations in accordance with two predicted
attributes based on respective historic attributes for two different features of
each content location.
We are, therefore, constrained by the record to find the Examiner
erred in rejecting independent claim 1, independent claim 12 which recites
commensurate limitations, and dependent claims 3-11 and 15-23 for similar
reasons.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 3-12, and 15-23 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner's rejections of claims 1, 3-12,
and 15-23 are reversed.
REVERSED
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