Ex Parte MurarkaDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 24, 201814754330 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 24, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 14/754,330 06/29/2015 Neel Ishwar Murarka 91230 7590 09/26/2018 Baker Botts L.L.P./Facebook Inc. 2001 ROSS A VENUE SUITE 900 Dallas, TX 75201 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. 079894.2796 7529 EXAMINER LE,KHOIV ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2436 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/26/2018 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): ptomaill@bakerbotts.com ptomail2@bakerbotts.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte NEEL ISHW AR MURARKA 1 Appeal2018-003326 Application 14/754,330 Technology Center 2400 Before JAMES R. HUGHES, CARLL. SILVERMAN, and JAMES W. DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judges. HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner's final rejection of claims 1, 5-17, and 19-22. Claims 2--4 and 18 have been canceled. Final Act. 1-2; Appeal Br. 3. 2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part. 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Facebook, Inc. Appeal Br. 3. 2 We refer to Appellant's Specification ("Spec.") filed June 29, 2015 (claiming benefit of US 13/689,912 filed Nov. 13, 2012); Appeal Brief ("Appeal Br.") filed Sept. 6, 2017; and Reply Brief ("Reply Br.") filed Feb. 6, 2018. We also refer to the Examiner's Final Office Action (Final Appeal2018-003326 Application 14/754,330 Appellant's Invention The invention at issue on appeal generally concerns mobile computing devices (see Spec. ,r 2}-specifically computer-readable storage media, devices, and methods for authenticating a user by identifying a set of content objects including one or more content objects that are socially relevant to a user and one or more content objects that are socially irrelevant to the user, the content object identification based on a social graph showing ( or not showing) a social relationship between the user and the content objects. The authentication process (method) presents ( on a client device) a request to select from the set of identified content objects. The process authenticates the user to access ( the functionality of) the client device based on the selections-where the process determines whether the selected content objects correspond to the socially irrelevant content objects. Spec. ,r,r 6, 16, 23-24; Abstract. Illustrative Claim Independent claim 1, reproduced below with the key disputed limitation emphasized, further illustrates the invention: 1. A method comprising: by a computing device, identifying, from a first plurality of content objects, a subset of the content objects comprising a second plurality of content objects, wherein the subset comprises at least one content object that is socially relevant to the user and at least one content object that is socially irrelevant to the user, wherein the content objects are identified based at least in part on whether in a social graph, a node corresponding to the user is connected by an edge to a node associated with Rejection) ("Final Act.") mailed June 26, 2017; and Answer ("Ans.") mailed Dec. 28, 2017. 2 Appeal2018-003326 Application 14/754,330 the content object, wherein the edge represents a social relationship between the content object and the user, wherein the identifying of the socially irrelevant content objects is based on the node associated with the content object not being directly connected to the node corresponding to the user; by the computing device, providing for presentation on a client device associated with a user a selection request and the subset of identified content objects; by the computing device, receiving an input indicating a selection of a plurality of the presented content objects by the user in response to the selection request; and by the computing device, authenticating the user to access a functionality of the client device based on a determination of whether the plurality of selected content objects correspond to the socially irrelevant content objects of the subset of identified content objects. Rejections on Appeal 1. The Examiner rejects claims 1, 16, and 19 on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting over corresponding claims 1-28 of US Patent No. 9,098,686 B2 ("'686 Patent"). 3 See Final Act. 4--10. 2. The Examiner rejects claims 1, 5-8, 10-13, 16, 17, and 19-22 under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Shepard et al. (US 2010/0229223 Al, published Sept. 9, 2010) ("Shepard") and York et al. 3 The Examiner states that " [ c] laims 1, 16, and 19 are provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting" (Final Act. 6 ( emphasis omitted)), but the rejection is over the claims of issued patent-US Patent No. 9,098,686 B2. Thus, the rejection is not provisional. We correct the statement of rejection for clarity and consistency. 3 Appeal2018-003326 Application 14/754,330 (US 2013/0275429 Al, published Oct. 17, 2013 (filed July 17, 2012)) ("York"). 4 See Final Act. 11-23. 3. The Examiner rejects claims 9, 14, and 15 under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Shepard, York, and Crawford et al. (US 2012/0214442 Al, published Aug. 23, 2012) ("Crawford"). See Final Act. 23-26. ISSUE Based upon our review of the record, Appellant's contentions, and the Examiner's findings and conclusions, the issue before is as follows: 1. Did the Examiner err in finding that Shepard and York would have collectively taught or suggested "authenticating the user to access a functionality of the client device based on a determination of whether the plurality of selected content objects correspond to the socially irrelevant content objects of the subset of identified content objects," within the meaning of Appellant's claim 1 and the commensurate limitations of claims 16 and 19? ANALYSIS The Double Patenting Rejection Appellant does not provide specific arguments showing error in the Examiner's double patenting rejection. Appellant instead states that "Applicant is willing to file a terminal disclaimer to obviate this rejection if the Examiner indicates that Claims 1, 16, and 19 of this Application are 4 The Examiner's statement of rejection includes canceled claim 18. See Final Act. 11. We correct the statement of rejection to exclude claim 18 for clarity and consistency. 4 Appeal2018-003326 Application 14/754,330 otherwise allowable in their current form." Appeal Br. 7. Accordingly, we proforma affirm the double patenting rejection of independent claims 1, 16, and 19. The 35 U.S.C. § 103 Rejections The Examiner rejects independent claim 1 as obvious over Shepard and York. See Final Act. 11-14; Ans. 4--8. Appellant contends Shepard and York (and, in particular, York) "fail to disclose, teach, or suggest authenticating the user to access a functionality of the client device based on a determination of whether the plurality of selected content objects correspond to the socially irrelevant content objects of the subset of content objects, as recited in independent Claim 1." (Appeal Br. 8; see Appeal Br. 7-9; Reply Br. 2-3). Appellant also contends that the Examiner's proposed combination of Shepard and York is improper, and that "the Examiner has failed to provide a clear articulation of the reasons why the proposed Shepard-York combination would have been obvious to one of skill in the art" (Appeal Br. 9). See Appeal Br. 9-12; Reply Br. 3--4. The Examiner relies on York to teach identifying socially irrelevant content objects and authenticating a user to access functionality of a client device based on a selection of socially irrelevant content objects. See Final Act. 13; Ans. 4--5 (citing York ,r,r 53, 89, 113, 114, Figs. 6-7). Appellant contends that York describes "authentication or access to the content object is determined based on access rules" (Appeal Br. 9) and the authentication is determined with respect to the content object rather than the device-"York discloses providing access to a content object, which is not providing access to a functionality of the client device" (id.). See Appeal Br. 7-9; Reply Br. 2-3. 5 Appeal2018-003326 Application 14/754,330 We agree with Appellant that York teaches authenticating access to content (content objects), not a device (device functionality), based on predefined rules. See, e.g., York ,r 114. York fails to describe authenticating access to a device, much less that access to the device is determined based on the selection of socially-relevant or socially-irrelevant content objects. It is unclear from the Examiner-cited portions of Shepard (see Shepard ,r,r 14, 21, 22, 32, 37, Figs. 1-2) and York (supra) how the combination of Sheppard and York teaches or suggests authentication utilizing socially-irrelevant content objects as required by Appellant's claim 1. The Examiner does not sufficiently explain how York identifies socially- irrelevant content objects or authenticates access to a device based on the selection of such content objects. Without further explanation, we are left to speculate as to how York describes the disputed features of Appellant's claim 1. Consequently, we are constrained by the record before us to find that the Examiner erred in finding Shepard and York teach the authentication feature of Appellant's claim 1. Independent claims 16 and 19 include limitations of commensurate scope. Dependent 5-8, 10-13, 17, and 20-22 depend on claims 1, 16, and 19, respectively, and stand with their respective independent claims. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of claims 1, 5-8, 10-13, 16, 17, and 19-22. With respect to the obviousness rejections of dependent claims 9, 14, and 15, the Examiner has not established on this record that the additionally cited Crawford reference overcomes or cures the aforementioned deficiency of Shepard and York. Dependent claims 9, 14, and 15 depend on claim 1. 6 Appeal2018-003326 Application 14/754,330 Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejections of claims 9, 14, and 15 for the same reasons as claim 1 (supra). CONCLUSIONS Appellant has not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 16, and 19 on the non-statutory ground of obviousness-type double patenting. Appellant has shown the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 5-17, and 19-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION We affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1, 16, and 19 on the non-statutory ground of obviousness-type double patenting, and reverse the Examiner's rejections of claims 5-15, 17, and 20-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 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-IN-PART 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation