Ex Parte ODownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 23, 201512631431 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 23, 2015) Copy Citation 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. 12/631,431 12/04/2009 Patrick Joseph O'Sullivan LOT920050047US2/1174-022 1732 44185 7590 07/23/2015 BAINWOOD HUANG & ASSOCIATES LLC c/o LOTUS AND RATIONAL SOFTWARE 2 Connector Road Westborough, MA 01581 EXAMINER WALKER III, GEORGE H ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3683 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/23/2015 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 PATRICK JOSEPH O’SULLIVAN ___________ Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 Technology Center 3600 ___________ Before ANTON W. FETTING, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and BRADLEY B. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judges. FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 Patrick Joseph O’Sullivan (Appellant) seeks review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of a final rejection of claims 1–9, 12–20, and 23, which along with claims 10, 11, 21, and 22 objected to, are the only claims pending in the application on appeal. We have jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). 1 Our decision makes reference to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed March 12, 2012) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed June 18, 2012), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed April 16, 2012). Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 2 The Appellant invented a way for prioritizing meeting attendees. (Specification 2, Field of the Invention). An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below (bracketed matter and some paragraphing added).2 1. A method, performed in at least one computer, of scheduling an event in an event scheduling system, comprising said at least one computer performing the steps of: [1] determining a plurality of event attendees; [2] generating an event time selection user interface for a scheduling user, said event time selection user interface enabling said scheduling user to assign one of a plurality of attendee priorities to each of said event attendees; [3] determining a plurality of attendee priority sets, wherein each of said attendee priority sets corresponds to a respective one of said attendee priorities and includes said respective one of said attendee priorities and all higher priority ones of said attendee priorities; 2 Claim 1 was amended after the final office action in an amendment filed November 10, 2011. This claim as amended was entered by an Advisory Action mailed November 25, 2011. See App. Br. 24. Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 3 [4] determining, by said at least one computer, a plurality of possible event time sets, wherein each of said possible event time sets corresponds to a respective one of said plurality of attendee priority sets, and wherein each of said possible event time sets contains only possible event times at which all of said event attendees assigned any attendee priority in said respective one of said plurality of attendee priority sets are available; and [5] displaying said attendee priority sets and said possible event time sets in said event time selection user interface, said event time selection user interface including a list of said possible event time sets and enabling said scheduling user to select one of said possible event times, wherein said event time selection user interface includes a visual correspondence between each of said plurality of possible event time sets and Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 4 said corresponding ones of said plurality of attendee priority sets. App. Br. 24. The Examiner relies upon the following prior art: Conmy US 6,101,480 Aug. 8, 2000 Walther US 2003/0217073 A1 Nov. 20, 2003 Cheng US 2005/0222890 A1 Oct. 6, 2005 Claims 1, 2, 3, 12, 13, 14, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Conmy and Cheng.3 Claims 4, 8, 9, 15, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Conmy, Cheng, and Walther. Claims 5–7 and 16–18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Conmy, Cheng, Walther, and Applicant admitted prior art. ISSUES The issues of obviousness turn primarily on whether the art describes “determining a plurality of attendee priority sets, wherein each of said attendee priority sets corresponds to a respective one of said attendee priorities and includes said respective one of said attendee priorities and all higher priority ones of said attendee priorities” of claim 1 limitation [3]. 3 A rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 was withdrawn in an Advisory Action mailed November 25, 2011. Also, the application of the art to the claims in the rejections changed substantially between the Final Rejection and the Answer, and included removing rejections from four claims. Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 5 FACTS PERTINENT TO THE ISSUES The following enumerated Findings of Fact (FF) are believed to be supported by a preponderance of the evidence. Facts Related to the Prior Art Conmy 01. Conmy is directed to network–based electronic calendars, schedulers, and tasking systems for groups of users. Conmy 1:21– 23. 02. Conmy automatically determines a “best fit” time for a proposed meeting when not all invitees are available at the same time. Conmy 1:57–59. 03. If not all invitees are available at anytime (within certain parameters) various routines may be performed automatically by Conmy to identify a “best fit” time for the meeting. For example, a weighting algorithm may be used to find the time that required persons (or rooms or resources) for the meeting are available. Conmy 2:27–33. 04. If there is no time interval during which all invitees are available, the system proceeds to determine a “best fit” where the first step is that the coordinator is requested to assign a weight for each invitee. That step may be performed at the time the coordinator is asked to invite the resources or persons or may be delayed until a determination is made as to whether free time for all invitees may be located. Alternatively, default values may be Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 6 assigned to types of resources. In the next step, all time intervals within a range of the requested time are assigned a weighted unavailability value that is indicative of its relative unavailability for the proposed event. The weighted value is a function of the type of unavailability associated with a given invitee and the relative importance of the invitee’s attendance at the proposed event. These factors are additive--therefore, the higher the weighted value, the less available the time interval will be. Conmy 6:34–54. 05. In the next step, Conmy chooses an available time interval based on the lowest weighted value. A value of zero would mean that everyone invited could attend the proposed event at the suggested time interval. Conmy selects the time interval with the lowest weighted unavailability value. Conmy then eliminates the invitee or resource with the lowest weighting. That new grouping is then returned to the earlier to determine the busy times for the new set of invitees and to compare to determine whether those invitees are available at the requested time. The process repeats these steps until a time interval is found based on the reduced number of invitees. That time is presented to the coordinator as a proposed alternative time with the “best fit.” Conmy 7:18–33. 06. In the next step, Conmy chooses an available time interval based on the lowest weighted value. A value of zero would mean that everyone invited could attend the proposed event at the suggested time interval. Conmy selects the time interval with the lowest weighted unavailability value. Conmy then eliminates the Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 7 invitee or resource with the lowest weighting. That new grouping is then returned to the earlier to determine the busy times for the new set of invitees and to compare to determine whether those invitees are available at the requested time. The process repeats these steps until a time interval is found based on the reduced number of invitees. That time is presented to the coordinator as a proposed alternative time with the “best fit.” Conmy 7:18–33. 07. Conmy may present information regarding availability of one or more potential invitees to an event in a variety of ways. Fig. 5 illustrates information that may be communicated when a user requests an event. In one location of the view, event selection portion, near the upper left hand corner of the box, the date and the time interval of the proposed event may be entered, which a coordinator may have entered to search for free time. A results portion may then be presented in the free time dialog box. In this instance, the search results indicate that the scheduled time is not available for everyone who has been invited. Indeed, in the illustration of FIG. 5, of the 174 invitees for the proposed event, calendar information on only 158 was found, and of those invitees, only 148 were found to be available to attend. Based on the calendar information found for 158 invitees Conmy provides alternative event times that represent the “best fit” for most of the invitees listed. The search parameters (date, time, and duration of the proposed event), the search results, and the recommended event times are the same in Figs. 5 through 9. A button may be Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 8 provided to permit the coordinator to modify the invitee list if desired. Conmy 7:38–66. Cheng 08. Cheng is directed to software scheduling, and more specifically to software that accesses multiple data types for consolidation onto a single document. Cheng para. 1. 09. Cheng facilitates generation of a meeting preparation report that is an aggregation of public and private data for a specific task. It is a user view of the power of social network analysis. Cheng compiles information about the meeting, including information about the recipients based on social relationships that is helpful in preparing for the meeting. URLs, shares, attachments, and documents can be referenced, as well as additional information on the meeting such as location maps, and on the recipients, including social relationships, are automatically provided. Cheng para. 4. 10. Recipients are sorted by decreasing org chart distance from the user. The org chart distance between two people is defined to be the shortest path within the org chart. Intuitively, this can be found between two people by summing each person’s org chart distance to the manager shared by both people. This sort order places more familiar recipients (i.e., those likely to be on the same team as the user) on the bottom and more unfamiliar recipients (those likely to be from other teams) on the top. Thus, the report can be formatted to present a top-down sorting of the recipients, Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 9 where the first recipient is associated with management, and the second and third recipients are associated with a lower grouping on the org chart. Cheng para. 38. 11. A sorting algorithm based on a company org chart for sorting and presenting recipients on the report begins by obtaining a list of prospective attendees. The algorithm determines the recipient distances based on the hierarchy of the org chart. All recipients are grouped in the recipients panel section of the report according to the org chart hierarchy. These sorted recipients can be grouped according to the titles and departments. Starting from the top of the sorted recipients, the sorting algorithm finds the set of groups that contain the most recipients (adjacent on the page). This search is repeated recursively to find subgroups. Cheng para. 41. ANALYSIS We are not persuaded by the Appellant’s argument that the art fails to describe “determining a plurality of attendee priority sets, wherein each of said attendee priority sets corresponds to a respective one of said attendee priorities and includes said respective one of said attendee priorities and all higher priority ones of said attendee priorities” of claim 1 limitation [3]. App. Br. 16–20. The Examiner applies Cheng for this description. Ans. 6. The limitation at issue neither recites nor narrows the manner or implementation of determining, correspondence, and inclusion. Most critically, the limitation does not recite or narrow what a priority relates to other than being attributed Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 10 to an attendee. Thus, any implementation is within the scope of the limitation. We find that the phrase “attendee priority” is an adjective followed by a noun and so we construe it according to its plain meaning as an adjective modifying that noun, viz. a priority of some attendee. Cheng explicitly assigns org chart distances to attendees as a criterion for prioritization. Thus, as priority is unconstrained in the claims, Cheng’s assignment of org level is within the scope of the claims. Cheng shows that this is a particularly efficient implementation because the organizational structure residing in computer memory implicitly and inherently creates differing levels of priority as a result of the levels at which individuals reside in the organizational structure. Because the org chart contains all possible attendees, the org chart necessarily contains the set of all event attendees, and because the org chart contains the levels of all such attendees, the org chart contains the levels of all attendees above any one attendee’s level. Thus, each attendee priority set in Cheng is the set of attendees and their respective org levels for a given attendee and attendees at higher levels. The remaining claims are argued on the basis of claim 1. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW The rejection of claims 1, 2, 3, 12, 13, 14, and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Conmy and Cheng is proper. The rejection of claims 4, 8, 9, 15, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Conmy, Cheng, and Walther is proper. Appeal 2012-009797 Application 12/631,431 11 The rejection of claims 5–7 and 16–18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Conmy, Cheng, Walther, and Applicant admitted prior art is proper. DECISION The rejection of claims 1–9, 12–20, and 23 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED llw Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation