Ex Parte McCormack et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 31, 2018

14552729 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 31, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/552,729 11/25/2014
136582 7590 11/02/2018
STEVENS & SHOWALTER, LLP
Box AVAYA Inc.
7019 Corporate Way
Dayton, OH 45459-4238
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Tony McCormack
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.
414100-US-NP/AVA115PA 8076
EXAMINER
POPE, KHARYE
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2652
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/02/2018 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):
pto@sspatlaw.com
pair_avaya@firsttofile.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte TONY MCCORMACK, NEIL O'CONNOR, MARTIN
MCDONNELL, and CIARAN AGNEW,
Appeal2018-001777
Application 14/552,729 1
Technology Center 2600
Before JAMES R. HUGHES, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and
CATHERINE SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judges.
SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
rejection of claims 1-20, which are all the claims pending and rejected in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 Appellants identify Avaya, Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2.
Appeal2018-001777
Application 14/552,729
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
According to the Specification, the present invention relates to
managing allocation of resources in an enterprise to handle communication
sessions. See Spec. ,r 2. Claim 1 is exemplary:
1. A computing system for managing a plurality of resources in a
contact center, the system comprising:
a processor;
a computer-readable medium coupled to the processor, the medium
comprising one or more computer readable instructions, the processor
executing the one of more computer readable instructions to:
monitor attributes of an incoming communication session at the
contact center from a customer;
store the monitored attributes in a database;
compute a respective contact time parameter for the each of the
plurality of resources based on the stored monitored attributes, wherein each
respective contact time parameter is a predicted amount of time a respective
one of the plurality of resources will take to complete the incoming
communication session;
select a resource from the plurality of resources based on the
computed contact time parameters; and
route the incoming communication session to the selected resource.
Petrovykh
Koster
Mezhibovsky
References and Rejections
US 2003/0037113 Al
US 8,649,499 Bl
US 2014/0140498 Al
Feb.20,2003
Feb. 11, 2014
May 22, 2014
Claims 1-7, 9-15, and 17-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Mezhibovsky and Petrovykh.
Claims 8 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Mezhibovsky, Petrovykh, and Koster.
2
Appeal2018-001777
Application 14/552,729
ANALYSIS 2
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellants'
contentions and the evidence of record. We concur with Appellants'
contention that the Examiner erred in determining the cited portions of
Mezhibovsky and Petrovykh collectively teach "wherein each respective
contact time parameter is a predicted amount of time a respective one of the
plurality of resources will take to complete the incoming communication
session," as recited in independent claim 1. See App. Br. 10-12; Reply Br.
2--4.
In the Final Action, the Examiner finds "Mezhibovsky does not
explicitly teach" the above limitation, and cites Petrovykh's paragraph 126
instead. See Final Act. 5. But that paragraph describes estimated waiting
time before receiving a response, not "a predicted amount of time a
respective one of the plurality of resources will take to complete the
incoming communication session," as required by claim 1.
In the Answer, the Examiner finds Mezhibovsky's paragraph 96
teaches the above limitation instead. See Ans. 4. That paragraph describes
"key performance indicator (KPI) values ... which are often used to assess
the performance ... may include ... average activity handling time ( e.g. the
average amount of time it takes an agent to service a particular activity)."
Mezhibovsky ,r 96. It does not describe using the average activity handling
time as "a predicted amount of time a respective one of the plurality of
resources will take to complete the incoming communication session," as
2 Appellants raise additional arguments. Because the identified issue is
dispositive of the appeal, we do not need to reach the additional arguments.
3
Appeal2018-001777
Application 14/552,729
required by claim 1. Nor does the Examiner adequately explain how that
paragraph teaches the disputed limitation.
Because the Examiner fails to provide sufficient evidence or
explanation to support the rejection, we are constrained by the record to
reverse the Examiner's rejection of claim 1.
Each of independent claims 10 and 18 recites a claim limitation that is
substantively similar to the disputed limitation of claim 1. See claims 10 and
18. Therefore, for similar reasons, we reverse the Examiner's rejection of
independent claims 10 and 18.
We also reverse the Examiner's rejection of corresponding dependent
claims 2-9, 11-17, 19, and 20. Although the Examiner cites an additional
reference for rejecting some dependent claims, the Examiner has not shown
the additional reference overcomes the deficiency discussed above in the
rejection of claim 1.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-20.
REVERSED
4