Ex Parte Nakamura

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 14, 2015

11455371 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 14, 2015)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE 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 APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 11/455,371 06/19/2006 Yuichi Nakamura 954-007860-US (DO2) 9762 2512 7590 07/14/2015 Perman & Green, LLP 99 Hawley Lane Stratford, CT 06614 EXAMINER ALVAREZ, RAQUEL ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3682 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/14/2015 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 YUICHI NAKAMURA ____________ Appeal 2012-012191 Application 11/455,371 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before ANTON W. FETTING, BIBHU R. MOHANTY and MICHAEL W. KIM, Administrative Patent Judges. KIM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 1–15. We have jurisdiction to review the case under 35 U.S.C. §§ 134 and 6. The invention relates generally to a mechanism for monitoring the interaction between mobile agents in a virtual mall using mobile agents. Spec. 1. Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is further illustrative of the claimed subject matter. 1. A computer system comprising; an execution environment for agents, wherein said execution environment includes a monitor mechanism for monitoring a message Appeal 2012-012191 Application 11/455,371 2 transmitted from a buyer customer agent addressed to a single specific seller shop agent. Claims 1–5, 7–9, and 12–14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Tada (US 5,887,171, iss. Mar. 23, 1999). Claims 6, 10, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Tada in view of Official Notice. Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Tada in view of Weber (US 5,889,863, iss. Mar. 30, 1999). We REVERSE. ANALYSIS Anticipation Rejection of Claims 1–5, 7–9, and 12–14 We are persuaded the Examiner erred in asserting that Tada anticipates “a message transmitted from a buyer customer agent addressed to a single specific seller shop,” as recited in independent claim 1. App. Br. 4– 10. The dispute centers on a proper construction of “addressed.” Through the Examiner’s application of the prior art, the Examiner appears to be asserting that a message can be “addressed” by its content, e.g., an item a buyer is searching for. So, for example, if a buyer is searching for a specific good, and includes that specific good is in the message, the buyer has “addressed” that message to a “single specific seller shop” that sells that specific good, by virtue of referencing that specific good in the message. The Appellants appear to be asserting that the Examiner’s construction of “addressed” is too broad, and that any narrower construction would render Tada inapplicable. We agree with the Appellants. The Specification refers to “addressed” in a narrower context than the Examiner. For example, the Specification discloses that “[a]t the virtual Appeal 2012-012191 Application 11/455,371 3 mall 1, a received customer agent 9b generates a message 15 based on the search conditions 11, and transmits it to a shop agent 5b.” Spec. 9. Accordingly, by the time the message is sent from customer agent 9b, it includes a specific reference to shop agent 5b that is more specific than just content generally. This is confirmed by later portions of the Specification, where data 51 of customer agent 9 distinguishes between search content (e.g., search condition 56, product list 57, associated information 58), and more specific addressing information, such as destination address 53 and shop ID 55. Spec. 12. Figures 12 and 13 provide examples of “address” as customer.ibm.com and shop.ibm.com. These disclosures of “address” in the Specification are consistent with the following dictionary definition: “[a]n identification, as represented by a name, label, or number, for a register, location in storage, or any other data source or destination such as the location of a station in a communication network.” The Authoritative Dictionary of IEEE Standard Terms, IEEE Press, New York, Seventh Edition, 2000, page 17 (attached as Exhibit). Given this construction of “addressed,” Tada does not disclose “a message transmitted from a buyer customer agent addressed to a single specific seller shop,” because agent 101 of Tada, which corresponds to the recited “buyer customer agent,” “has no knowledge of the agent to which a processing request message is transmitted.” Col. 3, ll. 61–63. In other words, if agent 101 (buyer customer agent) has no knowledge to which of agents 103, 104, 105 (single specific seller shop) a request message is transmitted, the message cannot be “addressed” to any specific agent 103, 104, 105 other than possibly through request content, but we have excluded expressly request content from “addressed,” in our analysis above. Appeal 2012-012191 Application 11/455,371 4 Accordingly, constrained by these facts, we cannot sustain this anticipation rejection of independent claim 1, or its respective dependent claims 2–5, 7– 9, and 12–141. Obviousness Rejection of Dependent Claims 6, 10, 11, and 15 The Examiner does not cite Official Notice or Weber to remedy the aforementioned deficiency of Tada. Accordingly, constrained by these facts, we cannot sustain the obviousness rejections of dependent claims 6, 10, 11, and 15. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1–15 is REVERSED. REVERSED mls 1 Our analysis does not negate the possibility that it may have been obvious to modify Tada to include an address to a specific agent 103, 104, 105, when the request message is transmitted from agent 101.