Ex Parte O

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 23, 2015

12631431 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 23, 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.
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).
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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.
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[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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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.
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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
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